Regent accused of skipping environmental impact study

Multa Fidrus , The Jakarta Post , Tangerang Sat, 03/22/2008 City

A councilor has accused the Tangerang regency administration of issuing a building permit to a housing complex developer without first completing the required environmental impact study.

Marlan Akip of the legislative council's Commission D, which oversees city development, said Wednesday the developer, Alam Cipta Karya, began construction on the housing complex in Ciakar village in Panongan district without the required study.

"The building permits were issued by Regent Ismet Iskandar based on recommendations made by the building and resettlement agency," Marlan said.

"It's another blunder that the regency had not received the mandatory environmental impact analysis (Amdal) documents when making the recommendation."

Amdal is the main requirement for the administration to consider development proposals. A similar case occurred in 2006 when the administration issued a permit for the construction a shopping mall on the banks of a lake in Pamulang district.

No reliable environmental study was done beforehand to assess the environmental impact of the project. The project was stopped following strong protests from residents.

"The administration is now repeating the same mistake. It is enough to show us that the performance of the administration is very poor," Marlan said.

Alam Cipta began building houses on 230 hectares of land in the village as part of the expansion of the upscale Citra Raya housing complex.

HM Hidayat, the regency's building and resettlement agency head, said his office decided to allow construction to begin even though the environmental impact analysis would not be completed until April.

"The project is an expansion of the Citra Raya project, which completed all the required documents in 2001. We handed a new permit to the company with a footnote stating the environmental impact study is still being completed."

Alam Cipta legal officer Rubilan said the company had obtained all the required permits and had even conducted global environmental impact studies.

"Actually, there are no more problems facing the housing construction project. But if we have to file a building permit and other necessary permits again, we are ready to do so," he said.