Guidelines for Issuing Building Construction Licenses

Minister of Home Affairs Regulation No. 32 of 2010 on Guidelines for Issuing Building Construction Licenses was recently issued, doing much to govern building construction throughout the country by way of licensing and related requirements.

Building Construction Licenses - ‘IMBs’ as the Bahasa Indonesia acronym goes - are generally issued by mayors or regents, and upon two principal considerations: (1) Regional Government Regulation, and; (2) regional spatial planning (Article 1 (8 - 10)). 

There are two types of IMB licenses: building construction, and non-building construction. Building construction IMBs are licenses for, among other things, residential, religious, commercial, and socio-cultural structures, while those for non-building construction are for parking lots, recreational areas, walls, statues, advertisements, and so on.

In the application for an IMB, parties must include ‘administrative’ and ‘technical’ supporting documents - listed in Article 9 of the regulation - along with a processing fee, or ‘retribution’ as the regulation terms it. The relevant authority will issue a response within 14 days of receipt, if the application is approved.

Once the license is secured, construction contractors take on a series of post-license obligations as holders of IMBs - not the least of which is stringent insistence that construction comply with all spatial planning regulation throughout every step of the process. Other technical requirements listed in Article 13 (2) include complying with the maximum allowable height for the building, and fulfilling the green area co-efficient.

Existing buildings are also beheld to the provisions of this regulation, with requirements set out in Chapter V: whether an IMB has been secured, whether or not it is aligned with all regional spatial planning, and so on.

Inconsistencies with spatial planning or other technical requirements are subject to sanctions. Post-license obligation violations will be sanctioned with written warnings, restricting or terminating construction, IMB license suspension, and demolition of the building. Construction that violates any type of spatial planning, or is not licensed can be destroyed, or have fines imposed on constructors.

The regulation repeals and replaces the previous regulation on the same subject matter, namely Minister of Home Affairs Regulation No. 7 of 1993, and has been in force since 30 April 2010.