Alternative Housing for Owners of Properties at Risk of Collapse in Informal Settlement Mazzeh 86

In early December, the General Housing Establishment invited occupants of so-called “housing at risk of collapse” within Damascus’ Mazzeh 86 informal housing neighbourhood to choose alternative housing.

The housing units at risk of collapse, in this case, are 28 homes that were built in violation of construction codes. A landslide beneath them in 2017 threatened the homes’ structural integrity. The houses were then demolished in 2018, according to prior statements from the Directorate of Technical Services, which is part of the Damascus Governorate.

The governorate has leased the residents of these 28 demolished houses temporary housing in the Barzeh neighbourhood of Damascus. They were granted the right to apply for alternative housing under Prime Ministerial Approval No. 16699/1, issued in November 2019. Subscription took place within the youth housing project in the Qudsaya expansion zone with the understanding that the alternative housing units would be delivered no more than three years after allocation. The General Housing Establishment also required that residents benefitting from the alternative housing complete payments amounting to 50 percent of the properties’ value upon allocation.

Alternative housing is not free. Rather, it is among the government’s social housing programmes, which the General Housing Establishment implements, at a cost to beneficiaries. Allocating a housing unit to an applicant means drawing up a contract that is considered a title deed between the applicant and the General Housing Establishment. The deed includes the location and a description of the housing unit.

Landslides are frequent in the Mazzeh 86 neighbourhood due to the geological nature of the land, as well as non-compliance with construction codes. In 2019, the Damascus Governorate ordered the evacuation of a cracked five-storey housing block, fearing its collapse. It is unclear whether the governorate subsequently demolished the building or if residents were granted the right to apply for alternative housing. The Al-Maghar area of Mazzeh 86 also witnessed landslides in 2016. Earlier, in 2010, there was a landslide in the neighbourhood due to an underground cavity.

The Mazzeh informal housing neighbourhood is part of the broader Mazzeh area southwest of Damascus and began to appear in the late 1970s. Residents built informal homes on publicly owned property, some of which had been expropriated for the Ministry of Defence (this part was next to the 86th Battalion of the Defense Companies, which at the time was commanded by regime strongman Rifaat Al-Assad). Most residents of Mazzeh 86 are low-income Alawites from the Syrian coast who migrated to Damascus. Many of them work in the security services and army. In the 1990s, two security checkpoints were set up in the area to halt the spread of informally built housing, without success.

Granting the residents of the 28 demolished homes the right to apply for alternative housing was seen as an exception and contradicted the laws in place that handle informal housing and urban planning. These laws, including Decree No. 66 of 2012 and Law No. 10 of 2018, stipulate that residents of informal housing constructed on publicly owned land whose homes face demolition have only the right to rental compensation for two years in the best of cases. Residents may also benefit from the rubble of their demolished homes under Law No. 3 of 2018, which discusses the removal of rubble belonging to damaged houses.

In justifying the preferential treatment towards the residents of the 28 demolished homes in Mazzeh 86, the General Housing Establishment’s director of social housing called the matter “an emergency situation.” Others have not been so lucky – in November 2021, the Hama Governorate warned residents of the informal Al-Naqarneh neighbourhood of the potential collapse of their homes due to landslides and ordered them to immediately evacuate their houses. The governorate neither granted those residents temporary housing, nor allowed them to apply for an alternative housing programme. The Hama Governorate considered that its warning to residents relieved it of any responsibility for the outcomes of what may have subsequently happened.