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Residents demand full participation
High-rise problems: Apartment residents stage a protest in front of City Hall in Central Jakarta on Tuesday
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span class="inline inline-center">High-rise problems: Apartment residents stage a protest in front of City Hall in Central Jakarta on Tuesday. They demanded the city administration enforce a law related to apartment management. Antara/Vitalis yogi Trisna
Residents of a number of strata-title apartment buildings in Jakarta have voiced their concern over the questionable management of their apartment buildings through blogs and social media.
For example, some residents of Kalibata City apartments in South Jakarta have posted their complaints on the jaringkalibatacity.blogspot.com weblog, while dissatisfied residents of The Green Pramuka Apartments in East
Jakarta lashed out on a Twitter account @dgreenpramukaku.
On Tuesday, they took their frustration to the streets.
The residents, grouped under the United Action of Indonesia Apartment Owners and Tenants (KAPPRI), staged a protest in front of City Hall, demanding the city administration settle their disputes with apartment managements.
The group also demanded a proper election of tenants and owners associations (P3SRS), as stipulated by law. Simson, one of the residents, said Law no 20/2011 on apartments stated that management of strata- title apartments should be handed over to the owners and tenants who will later assign a contractor.
'The reality is around 60 apartment complexes are still controlled by the developers,' he said, as quoted by kompas.com, adding that the city administration was supposed to monitor and control apartment management.
Residents who participated in the protest were from ITC Mangga Dua apartments in West Jakarta, Graha Cempaka Emas in Central Jakarta, Green Pramuka in East Jakarta, Kalibata City in South Jakarta and Marina Ancol in North Jakarta.
Issues like unreasonable hikes in maintenance, electricity and water charges as well as the misuse of public and social facilities for commercial purposes usually emerge as issues when apartment residents are unsatisfied with financial reports or are not involved in the P3SRS.
An example cited was the 18-tower Kalibata City complex. The management of the building, PT Prima Buana Internusa, a subsidiary of the developer Agung Podomoro Group, increased the maintenance costs from Rp 2.3 million (US$174.8) per year in 2014 to Rp 3.29 million per year this year for Kalibata Residence and Kalibata Regency and Rp 4.5 million to Rp 6.1 million for Kalibata Green.
One of the residents, Umi Hanif, said the management had failed to produce convincing financial reports on the income and expenditure of the maintenance costs when the residents asked for transparency.
Umi, who has been living in Kalibata City since 2011, said the tenants were also not informed about the formation of the P3SRS in Kalibata City. 'Without the residents being told anything, we heard the committee members for the [election of the P3SRS] had been inaugurated,' she said.
Umi said the committee could decide the eligible candidates for P3SRS membership. 'However, many of the committee members are related to the management or developer,' she said.
Responding to the complaint, general manager of Kalibata City Evan T Walad denied the formation of the committee to hold the election for the P3SRS was unilateral. He said that as a representative of the developer, his company fully supported the formation of the P3SRS and would facilitate it.
Evan said he would also be available to meet residents who were unsatisfied with the committee.
'We will try to accommodate all interests in forming the P3SRS. We have around 13,000 residents, so it will be hard to satisfy everyone,' he said, as quoted by kompas.com.
