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ousing developers and property businesses in Depok have protested the new plot-size limitations for residential areas in the municipality, as regulated in the recent Spatial Planning bylaw.

The bylaw, which was passed by the Depok Council earlier this month, stipulates a higher minimum plot size for mid- to up-market housing of 120 square meters in order to curb the demand for housing.

Chairman of the Depok chapter of the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin), Wing Iskandar, said that the businesses were upset because they were not involved in the drafting of the bylaw.

“We’ve not been told the reasons for drawing up this new regulation which will obviously have serious ramifications for housing developers, especially businesses with less capital who can only build smaller houses,” he said over the weekend.

Wing said that housing developers in Depok built mid-to up-market houses on plots of between 72 square meters and 90 square meters.

Firms from the Depok and West Java chapters of the Indonesia Real Estate Developers Association formally filed complaints with Depok Council speaker Rintis Yanto in a meeting on Jan. 9. “We urge a revision of the new bylaw, otherwise we will file for a judicial review with the Constitutional Court,” Wing said.

Head of Depok Spatial and Housing Agency, Nunu Heryana, said that the plot-size limitation was made to support the administration’s policy of allowing for more open, green spaces in the municipality.

He said that Depok’s population had reached 1.8 million, while available open green space accounted for 13 percent of its 20,000 hectares, the ideal being 33 percent. “If only bigger houses are available in Depok, it will in time be a natural screening process for newcomers,” said Nunu.

“We are focusing on the development of apartments or vertical housing that needs relatively less land compared to housing complexes,” he said, adding that currently Depok had eight apartment blocks and the administration planned to build three affordable apartment blocks.

“The future of Depok is a clean, healthy and green city, not an industrial area. The administration will decline requests for permits to establish new industries in the municipality,” Nunu said.

According to Rintis, the council speaker, many housing developers failed to ensure that their buyers abided by the ratio of land to structure which had been set by the administration.

“As a result, at least 400,000 houses have been re-developed by buyers covering the land with concrete. People should understand that we passed the law to protect our environment, not to violate their rights to build a house,” Rintis said.

He added that the Spatial Planning Bylaw was with the West Java Development Planning Board (Bappeda) for review before taking effect next year.