When buying in a new housing estate, most of us focus on the house itself: the type, the number of bedrooms, the build quality. Yet how pleasant it is to live there depends a lot on what lies outside your gate. A broken road, a blocked drain, or a park plot that quietly turns into more house lots can spoil a perfectly good home.

This article explains how to check an estate’s public facilities (fasum) and community facilities (fasos) before you pay a booking fee.

Fasum and Fasos: What’s the Difference?

In Indonesian housing rules these are called prasarana, sarana and utilitas (PSU): infrastructure, facilities and utilities. In everyday speech people say fasum and fasos.

  • Fasum is shared infrastructure: estate roads, drainage, street lighting and rubbish collection points.
  • Fasos covers community facilities: a mosque or prayer room, a park, a playground and a community hall.
  • Utilities cover the clean water, power and telecoms networks.

All three shape daily life and, later, the resale value of your home.

Start With the Site Plan

Ask for the estate’s site plan (siteplan), and make sure it is the approved version, not just a marketing drawing. It shows the roads, drains, community plots and house lots.

When reading it, look at:

  • Where the mosque, park or playing field will go. Is the location clear, and is the area reasonable for the number of houses?
  • Where the estate’s drains discharge. Is there a clear outlet?
  • Whether the main estate road connects directly to a public road, or crosses land owned by someone else.

Then compare the plan with what is on the ground. If a community plot on the plan has become a row of houses or shophouses, ask about it seriously.

Check the Estate Roads

Roads are what residents complain about most. Look at:

  • Width. Can two cars pass? Can a fire engine or ambulance get to the far end?
  • Construction. Concrete, paving, or still compacted fill? If it is still fill, ask when it will be surfaced and get the promise in writing.
  • Road height relative to the houses. On swampy ground, as in much of Banjarmasin, a road that is raised later can leave houses sitting lower than the street, so water runs into the front yard.
  • Access to the public road. A narrow entrance, or one that crosses land with unclear status, can become a problem down the line.

Check the Drainage Carefully

In South Kalimantan, drainage is often what separates a comfortable estate from one that floods every rainy season. Many estates are built on filled former swamp or rice fields, and river tides affect how water drains.

Check:

  • Are there drains on both sides of the road, and are they connected?
  • Do they flow into a larger channel, a river or a canal, or simply stop at the edge of the estate?
  • Are there water lines on fence walls or electricity poles?
  • What does it look like after heavy rain? Visit during or after a downpour and see for yourself.

Ask people who already live there. They usually know exactly which spots flood and how long the water takes to go down. There is more in our articles on checking drainage and flood-resistant homes on swampland.

Check the Community Facilities

Brochures often show a grand mosque and a green park. On the ground it can look different. Ask:

  • Has the mosque or prayer room been built, is it under construction, or is it still an empty plot?
  • Who is building it: the developer, or residents through their own fundraising?
  • Do the park and playground exist yet, and who maintains them?

A community plot that is still empty isn’t necessarily a problem, especially in an estate still being built. What matters is clarity: when it will be built, who pays, and whether the plot appears on the approved site plan.

Handover to the Local Government

Few buyers ask about this, but it matters in the long run. Developers are required to hand the estate’s infrastructure, facilities and utilities over to the local government. Once that happens, the roads and drains become public assets, so repairs can be included in government programmes.

Until handover, upkeep is the developer’s responsibility. The trouble is that once every house is sold, some developers stop actively maintaining the estate, and residents end up paying through monthly fees.

Ask the developer:

  • Has the PSU been handed over to the local government, or will it be?
  • If not, when, and what still needs to be finished?
  • Who maintains the roads, drains and street lights until then?

To confirm, you can ask the office responsible for housing in the local regency or city. Procedures and requirements for handover can vary between regions.

Get Promises Into the Agreement

A verbal promise from a sales agent isn’t enough. If a facility matters to you, such as a concrete road up to your house or a mosque inside the estate, ask for it to be written into the Perjanjian Pengikatan Jual Beli (PPJB, the conditional sale agreement) or its attachments.

Keep the brochure, the site plan and screenshots of the ads. If things turn out differently, these documents are strong evidence, especially when residents raise the issue together. Before that, make sure the developer itself is sound by reading how to check a developer’s legal standing. For reading marketing material, see reading a housing brochure.

Quick Checklist

  1. Get the approved site plan and compare it with the ground.
  2. Check road width, surface and height.
  3. Visit during or after rain to see the drainage.
  4. Confirm the status of the mosque, park and community space.
  5. Ask whether the PSU has been handed to the local government.
  6. Get important promises written into the PPJB.
  7. Talk to residents who already live there.

Good shared facilities make a home nicer to live in and easier to sell later. If you are weighing up several estates in Banjarmasin or Banjarbaru, the Vorneo Property team can help you check these points.