Apartment Living at Kalibata City: Things I Love and Hate about It

The Love:

I love the fact that its initial price was extremely affordable as it was designated for the lower income class, although that ‘extremely affordable price’ was actually still on the expensive side for them. And that in just a couple of years that initial price has almost tripled which makes it even more impossible for them to buy an unit or rent it as the monthly rent for fully furnished 2 bed rooms is around Rp 3,000,000 – Rp 4,000,000 (US$ 312 –  US$416). But for myself I’m totally grateful for Kalibata City's existence.

The other thing that I really love is its very location. Without traffic – which only happens once a year – it takes only 20 minutes from Kalibata to my office and 15 minutes to home (my parents’ house). While with the usual traffic it takes about an hour to the office and about 40 minutes to home.  

Like most of other apartments to make life easier for their residents it has its own shopping mall. If they need anything the residents could just go down to the mall or the many stores on the first floor of their towers.

And I actually love the little space of my apartment as I only use it mainly to sleep. I love the fact that I don’t have to spend hours to sweep and mop the floors. It’s like living in a hotel room that belongs to you.

The Hate:

The down side of the lower income apartment complex is its parking lot. I remember asking the sales girl about it when I bought my unit and the answer she gave me.

She said there’s no special parking lot for tenants.  Upon my stunned look she explained ‘these apartments are designated for the lower income class’, I guessed she was trying to imply that they don’t have cars hence there’s no need to provide spacious parking spaces.

I didn’t know whether that was her standardized answer for that question because even without looking at their bank accounts with just one look I could see that the other customers around me were not from lower income class. And the customer before me was actually buying two more units for his nephew and niece.     

With just one look one could see the latest brand new cars – that can’t be afforded by the lower income class – in Kalibata City.  And with the number of cars owned by the residents and the limited parking space parking has become a nightmare.

Some of the cars owners park their cars in the prohibited areas. A few even park their car right in the middle of the street thus blocking the traffic. These few are those who have to work late and perhaps getting frustrated and mad after failing in their attempt to find legal parking space.

The second on my hate list is the difficulty to communicate with the management either face to face or by phone. They only have one line/one number and that’s it. That one line, when it isn’t busy manned by no one. One could spend hours with no body picking up the phone. I once spent 2 hours just trying to get through before deciding to give up the effort.

At the top of my hate list is its subscribed parking mechanism. There’s simply no mechanism at all. If I want to renew my parking I have no idea whether I should go to the same place I went last time or not. They change the place as they please without prior notice. It takes a detective work or a good hunch on our part just to pay the money. 

The little thing that annoys me is its security. The tenants have an access card but apparently the entrance is not limited to tenants only. I have no problem with the guests of the tenants but I HATE those ‘Best massage available 24 hours’ fliers –that are sneakily being slipped under my door at night. I have a very sneaky suspicion as to what is being offered exactly.

I hate the fact that I have to pick up this trash and throw it into the garbage dump. Some tenants who have lost all their patience just kick those fliers out of their units and let them litter the corridor. 

One more thing. We’ve just paid millions for maintenance fee and sinking fund in January but the roads remain horrible. How long do we have to wait before the management starts repairing this infrastructure? The rainy season has almost ended and there are days and even week without rain to work the ground.

It seems like I wrote more about things I hate but the truth is I love the apartment living at Kalibata City. It’s the best apartment complex in its class in Jakarta.

ps:

- All the pictures above are taken from the internet
- As the parking situation is not getting any better in fact it's just getting worse, I'm seriously
  considering to let my unit (Tower Damar 16th floor).