Potential for Providing Housing in Jakarta Through Co-residence

Co-residence: A New Potential for Residential Provision in Jakarta

JAKARTA - Head of the University of Indonesia's Housing and Urban Settlement Science Group Joko Adianto said co-residence is one of the solutions to providing housing for the limited and expensive land prices in Jakarta. Co-residence allows more people to live on the same land by increasing the height of the building.

"The form should be vertical housing because Jakarta is too expensive to build landed houses," Joko said at a press conference "Potential for Fulfilling Demand for Middle Class Houses with Co-residence Type", Tuesday, July 4, 2023.

Joko explained that co-residence is a way of living similar to the concept of multi-family housing. One building consists of several ownerships with shared and private spaces. The owner can transfer their ownership rights to another party.

The difference between co-residence and other types of vertical housing is the initiator. Co-residence comes from community initiatives and self-help results, and the height of the building is only about four floors. Meanwhile, existing vertical housing is built by developers or the government and is in the form of towers of flats or apartments with a height of more than 15 floors.

According to Joko, co-residence generates at least two benefits for the city. First, it increases the supply of affordable housing. The DKI Jakarta Provincial Medium-Term Development Plan (RPJMD) 2017-2022 targets the construction of 250,000 decent and affordable housing units. A simulation of the potential supply of housing units with the application of co-residence on 360 hectares of land with an area per unit of 36 square meters shows that 280,000 housing units can be built. This figure is obtained if the housing is
built vertically as high as 4 (four) floors.

Secondly, it increases local revenue in the form of taxes and other income through increased daily consumption. Co-residence allows people, who moved outside Jakarta due to the high cost of housing, to return to the capital city.

Joko, who is also an Adjunct Researcher at the Demography Institute, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Indonesia, said that the rearrangement of zoning rules is significant in order to adapt the type of co-residence. So far, zoning for housing is only intended for single families. Meanwhile, the concept of co-residence requires the establishment of regulations for multi-family housing into a type of residence that will later be translated into the zoning regulations of the Provincial Government of DKI Jakarta.
DKI Jakarta.

In addition, said Joko, co-residence development requires adjustments to spatial aspects, as well as social aspects, bank financing, ownership systems including long-term leases, and licensing.

Jakarta Property Institute Executive Director Wendy Haryanto said that co-residence
adds to the housing options that make it easier for people to choose the type of housing they can afford. Co-residence has also been implemented in European countries and includes the United States. This is because the current condition is a mismatch between the price of residential supply in the market and the ability of the community. "People need more types of housing," said Wendy.

Wendy said the recognition of the legality and legal certainty of co-residence from the government could answer the issue of limited and expensive land prices in Jakarta. The co-residence concept emphasizes the potential of community self-help. "The community is no longer the object of development, but the subject in providing housing," he said.

In addition, the high price of housing in Jakarta, Wendy continued, requires policy innovation across government sectors. One of them can be started from the development of affordable housing on consolidated land, the development of affordable housing with creative financing, to financial policy innovations in the form of special interest for affordable housing products.

Responding to Joko and Wendy, Head of the Development and Environment Bureau of the DKI Jakarta Regional Secretariat Iwan Kurniawan said the provision of housing in Jakarta through co-residence is one part of the housing continuum. "The concept matches the culture of the Indonesian people who like to live together with relatives or extended family," said Iwan.

To realize the direction of urban development in the field of housing and settlements, Iwan explained, the DKI Jakarta Government through Governor Regulation Number 31 of 2022 concerning the Detailed Spatial Planning of DKI Jakarta Province has made arrangements that residential houses can be built up to 4 floors with certain terms and conditions to encourage land optimization.

As for co-ownership such as multi-family housing ownership of one building (flat house), Iwan continued, a breakthrough is needed in the regulation of ownership of buildings. "It also requires the participation of JPI and academics as well as professional associations in developing the concept of co-residence," Iwan said.

In line with Iwan, Sub-Coordinator of Settlement Planning Affairs of the DKI Jakarta Public Housing and Settlement Area Agency Sapta Satria Putra said the co-residence concept provides a deeper understanding of the potential for housing development in Indonesia, especially for the DKI Jakarta Provincial Government. The needs of Jakarta residents related to housing are well illustrated in connection with the dynamics that occur in the city of Jakarta.

Sapta said ideas related to space, the realm of certainty in housing, settlement facilities and constructive proposals in the study can be used as a basis for future policy formulation. "We welcome more public participation in the idea of housing development in Jakarta," Sapta said.