I

nhabitants of the banks of the Ciliwung River in Kampung Pulo, East Jakarta, look likely to win their fight to remain in the area, with the city administration having agreed to build a low-cost apartment complex there.

After a meeting at City Hall on Friday with NGO Sanggar Ciliwung Merdeka, which aims to empower residents of Ciliwung'€™s banks, Jakarta Governor Basuki '€œAhok'€ Tjahaja Purnama agreed to compensate residents whose land was affected by normalization of the river with another property.

'€œThose who have legal documents of ownership will get one and a half times the size of their land in the form of an apartment unit,'€ he said.

For example, he said, if the residents owned 100 square meters of land, they would get 150 sqm in the form of a unit in the apartment building.

The city administration previously insisted that all settlements on river banks, including those in Kampung Pulo, were illegal and planned to relocate all riverbank dwellers to low-cost apartments. However, Kampung Pulo residents refused to be relocated, claiming that they legally owned the land and their houses. Most of the families have been living in the area for generations.

According to Ciliwung Merdeka, the residents have ownership documents ranging from land certificates to girik (customary land appointments), verbonding, purchase agreements, building use permits (HGB), building ownership statements and house purchase statements.

Of the 2.5 hectares set to be affected by the project, the NGO said, most was documented, with only 0.8 ha of land undocumented.

Ciliwung Merdeka lawyer team member Vera Soemarwi said the Kampung Pulo area was around eight ha.

'€œAs the river normalization project will only take 2.5 hectares, we will still have around six hectares for the apartment complex,'€ he said.

Ahok said there would be a water catchment area in the complex and that he would scrap a plan to build a tunnel in the area.

'€œIf I can get developers to build the apartments as part of their obligation, the groundbreaking can be conducted this year,'€ he said, adding that if he failed to do so, he would propose the apartments in the revised 2015 budget or the 2016 budget.

Many developers have yet to fulfil their obligation to build low-cost apartments, a stipulation of permits to build commercial buildings.

The city administration, Ahok went on, would not revoke an order for residents to dismantle their houses on Saturday. The residents will live in nearby Jatinegera Barat low-cost apartments while the city administration and Ciliwung Merdeka execute the plan.

Ciliwung Merdeka leader Sandyawan Sumardi said that the governor had approved their design of the apartments, which will be called the Community-Based Elevated Kampung. '€œThe point is that the residents do not want to be compensated with money but with housing,'€ he said, adding that his organization would serve as the mediator and designer of the apartments.

'€œThe capacity of the apartment complex will be around 4,500 families, while the number of Kampung Pulo residents is around 3,800 families,'€ Sandyawan said.

Land owners would become unit owners, he said, and would be allowed to let the apartments, but would be allowed to sell only to the city administration.

'€œThe city administration also acknowledges Kampung Pulo land as customary land,'€ he said.

He added that his NGO would provide updates. '€œWe hope the residents will voluntarily dismantle their houses tomorrow,'€ he said.