“We don’t want such a thing to happen in the future, in which they [authorities] act inhumanely and the residents win in court,” Agus said on the sidelines of campaign activities in East Jakarta on Friday. 

On Thursday, the court’s panel of judges declared that the eviction of Bukit Duri residents conducted by Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok’ Tjahaja Purnama’s administration in September violated the law because it was not done according to proper procedure. 

Agus said that with the court ruling, the Jakarta administration should learn to act carefully when it wanted to relocate residents. 

“A lesson has been learned with this incident. It shows that every step taken by the administration should be measurable and conducted carefully and humanely,” he said. 

(Read also: Bukit Duri eviction declared ‘illegal’)

Agus earlier said should he have to relocate any residents, he would do it humanely by involving them from the beginning of the relocation process.

He further said that he would dispatch social workers assigned to explain to would-be-evictees what apartment life was like. 

Agus said he wanted to construct 300,000 apartments in 700 towers. He said the concept of "vertical housing" applied would be similar to rusunami (subsidized low-cost apartments) with ownership rights, he said. (ebf)

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