JAKARTA: Some Jakartans are eyeing low-rise, multi-family complexes as a solution to housing problems facing Jakarta, which they believe offer more liveability and affordability compared to other options within and around the city.
Middle class Jakartans living in the city outskirts are forced to commute to work every day or rent a high-rise apartment that is closer to the city centre.
As an alternative, Jakarta-based think-tank Rujak Center for Urban Studies (RCUS) launched a low-rise residential complex that houses multiple families, where each resident lives in a unit as a shareholder in a housing cooperative.
The think-tank built a four-level mixed-use flat on a 280-square-metre plot in Menteng, Central Jakarta as a pilot project. After the construction of the building finished in December 2024, the unit now accommodates seven households, a bookstore, a coffee shop and an office for RCUS.
Tenants are shareholders in a cooperative established by RCUS which the think-tank claims helps lessen the financial burden of building and owning a home.
“Each tenant becomes a coop member who must pay a deposit based on the size of the unit they live in,” RCUS co-founder Marco Kusumawijaya said at a session of the Jakarta Future Festival on June 13.
After a pilot unit in Menteng, RCUS is expanding the project with two planned units in Pancoran, South Jakarta and Matraman, East Jakarta. The two locations were picked thanks to their proximity to public transportation lines and other established facilities, such as schools and markets. RCUS says the projects have been attracting many potential tenants.
One of them is M. Fathan Vidyarana, 28, who is looking for an affordable home close to a public transit line or hub.
“I was looking for a relatively affordable place to live, but my priority is the place must be close to the city centre,” Fathan said, adding that he prefers to use public transportation to travel around the city.
“So when I found out that the next flats are in either Matraman or Pancoran, which are very close to bus stops and train stations, I immediately thought that they would be suitable for me,” he added.
Photographer Galuh Magistra sees the coop, low-rise project as a good “win-win solution” for tenants and landowners. He decided to use his family’s 600sq m lot in Matraman for the RCUS next project.
“I feel that it’s such a waste if our land is used for one family,” Galuh said.
“That’s why we want to increase the [population] density [on this land] by joining this project.”
The Matraman housing project is expected to consist of 20 units, with each unit’s area ranging from 20 to 80sq m.
Galuh claimed that hundreds of applicants had applied to join the programme. Rather than a typical commercial housing project that sells ready-to-settle units, the construction of the flats involves tenants.
“Some of the designs can be customised, although we already provide the basic idea [for the building],” Galuh said.
Anton Sitorus, head of research at real estate services firm CBRE Indonesia, said that the low-rise, cooperative housing initiative offered by RCUS could provide an alternative solution for urban settlements, especially for people not eligible for government housing subsidies.
Among President Prabowo Subianto’s flagship programmes is a plan to provide three million subsidised houses.
But the project was met with questions as the Public Housing and Settlements Ministry recently displayed a mockup of a 14sq m “mini home”, which was immediately slammed by experts for lacking basic features of liveable houses such as proper lighting and ventilation.
In Jakarta and its outskirts, where land availability is becoming rare, there is no urgency for landed houses, Anton argued.
“Vertical housing is indeed the solution to answer Jakarta’s rising house prices,” Anton said
“Since the building and maintenance costs for high-rise apartment complexes are costly, the solution lies in low-rise vertical housing.” - The Jakarta Post/ANN
