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Affordable housing for all ‘doable’: Urbanists

For millions of middle- and lower-income Jakartans, owning a roof over their heads may seem an impossibility amid sky-high land prices, but some urbanists believe that providing affordable housing is not a distant dream

Vela Andapita (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Fri, November 15, 2019

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Affordable housing for all ‘doable’: Urbanists

For millions of middle- and lower-income Jakartans, owning a roof over their heads may seem an impossibility amid sky-high land prices, but some urbanists believe that providing affordable housing is not a distant dream.

Urban experts stress that better coordination between the city administration and the private sector, as well as taking the appropriate communications approach in housing and relocation projects, would generate many alternative solutions.

Jakartans that fall into the middle-income bracket generally opt to purchase a house in the suburbs and spend hours commuting every day to work in the capital.

Families in the lower-income bracket, on the other hand, are left with no choice but to rent, move in with relatives or build ad hoc settlements that gradually expand into slum areas.

Urban expert Joko Adianto, an architecture lecturer at the University of Indonesia, said that providing affordable housing in Jakarta seemed a preposterous idea because of increasing land prices, which showed no signs of abating.

“The administration could start with acquiring land through the correct approach, be it city-owned or privately owned. This will take a long time,” Joko said at a discussion on housing at SBM ITB Jakarta campus in South Jakarta on Tuesday.

“Giving people access to affordable housing doesn’t mean building apartments and roads. It should give them new lives and space to grow. Otherwise, people will be reluctant to [sign up with] the city’s housing programs,” he added.

According to Statistics Indonesia, Jakarta had 3,5 million families in 2018. Of this figure, 99.36 percent had access to decent and affordable housing, leaving the city with 22,000 families that did not. 

The Jakarta administration finished building this year its first zero down-payment, low-cost apartment complex: Klapa Village in Duren Sawit, East Jakarta.

Developed by city-owned developer PD Pembangunan Sarana Jaya, the 1.5-hectare complex is one of Governor Anies Baswedan’s flagship programs that he promised during his campaign in 2017.

Klapa Village consists of 780 apartment units, including 420 one-bedroom units that each cost Rp 185 million (US$13,000), excluding tax. The remaining 360 units have two bedrooms and cost Rp 305 million, excluding tax.

The complex, however, only meets a fraction of the housing target in the city’s 2017 to 2022 medium-term regional development plan, which aims to provide 250,000 homes.

Jakarta Property Institute (JPI) urbanist Mulya Amri concurred with Joko, saying that if the city could help acquire land for housing developments, it would worry less about financing construction.

“The city actually has a lot of money from arrears in IPPR that private developers should pay,” said Mulya, referring to the spatial utilization principle license (IPPR; formerly SIPPT).

The IPPR imposes an obligation on developers to construct public facilities and pay a contribution to the city administration.

“The new housing projects should definitely be vertical, and be mixed-used areas that are integrated with public facilities like markets and [public transit hubs],” he added.

For example, Mulya explained, if the city used the correct approach in temporarily relocating 1,000 families that lived on a certain plot of land, it could start building apartment towers that had 4,000 units. When construction was finished, the 1,000 families could be given two apartments each, one for them to live in and the other for renting out. The remaining 2,000 apartments could be sold to low-income families.

He continued that the bottom two to three floors of the towers could be opened as a retail space that could be leased to the apartment’s residents for starting new businesses.

“That way, we will solve several problems simultaneously. People will have a better place to live, as well as better [transport] access for their daily errands and space to grow [businesses],” said Mulya.

Asked about the extent to which private developers would be willing to contribute to the city’s housing programs, like the zero-down housing project, Mulya replied that this would depend on the return on investment.

“If the project is not profitable, we [developers] will definitely be hesitant. We have to be realistic. Private enterprises like us are money-oriented simply because it’s what allows us to survive,” he said.

Following Mulya’s comments, Sapta Satria, the head of the Jakarta Public Housing Agency’s public housing planning unit, said that getting developers to pay their IPPR contributions was not easy.

“We’re confused as to how to make sure that every developer pays their contribution right away. Many have been in arrears for years,” said Sapta.

“All the city can do is to limit their [noncompliant developers] access to obtaining new building permits. They must pay up first before they [are allowed to] start another project,” he added.

Sapta said that to reduce the IPPR backlog, the city was now planning to build 14,500 low-cost apartments for low-income families who earned below Rp 4 million a month. It was also prioritizing the development of apartments for owning, not renting.

According to Sapta, the city has 160 low-cost apartment complexes with a total of 27,000 units in at least 24 locations.

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