Backlash Over Reconstruction Plan for Jobar and Qaboun

On March 13, the Damascus Governorate held a meeting to present a reconstruction project for “the revival” of the areas east of the capital, including Jobar, Qaboun, and Bab Sharqi. Around 30 people attended the meeting, including members of neighbourhood committees, dignitaries from Qaboun and Jobar (but not from Bab Sharqi), as well as lawyers and engineers.

Mohammad Ismail Al-Bazri, the director of the Neighbourhood Committees Office in Damascus Governorate, said during the meeting that there is an official directive to bring in foreign companies to finance and implement the project, in exchange for receiving 50 per cent of the total project’s 1,100 hectares. The project has an estimated cost of USD 21 billion, and could create around 200,000 job opportunities, according to Mr Bazri. The USD 21 billion figure estimated by Mr Bazri seems excessive given that the World Bank estimated that the total cost of reconstruction in Syria stands at USD 216 billion.

Authorities are relying on foreign companies due to the limited capabilities of the Syrian private sector, as well as the government’s inability to finance the project, Mr Bazri said.

Other meeting attendees told The Syria Report that this deducted share would range between 50 percent of previously zoned areas and 70 percent of informal settlements built on land classified as agricultural. In return, owners of homes built in zoned areas would receive 50 per cent of the area of their former homes, in the residential buildings that the foreign companies would build for them. In the informal settlements, however, compensation would be set at 30 per cent of the area of land classified as “agricultural,” regardless of the unlicensed buildings constructed on it.

Calculating compensation based on a percentage of the original housing area is complex and difficult to estimate, given the scale of destruction in the two areas and the disappearance of many residential buildings. The proposal also did not take into account the rights of non-owners, including tenants of those properties.

Likewise, basing compensation on a percentage of agricultural land area in informal settlements ignores the reality of those settlements and the large number of buildings constructed on them, many of which are now destroyed, along with the rights of their owners.

Backlash among residents

Some actors from the Qaboun neighbourhood issued a statement on March 29 entitled “Towards Fair Reconstruction that Preserves Land and Dignity,” in which they explained their legal and planning position on the reconstruction proposal. The statement described some of the governorate’s proposals as potentially leading to “forced displacement with an administrative character,” stressing that private property rights after the fall of the Assad regime on 8 December 2024 are “sacred constitutional rights that cannot be diminished.” The signatories to the statement, including dignitaries, lawyers and professors, rejected the investment model being circulated, considering that it is based on imposing compensation rates not exceeding 30 percent of the land, which they described as “property dispossession,” and saw it as a violation of Article 16 of the Constitutional Declaration and an assault on the rights of owners.

Several representatives and residents from the two neighbourhoods, who considered that this model shifts the cost of the project onto the owners themselves, by deducting its cost from the area of their future buildings. Since many of these areas are informal settlements built on land classified as agricultural, where construction is prohibited, rights holders there would be the most harmed. They also pointed out that the proposal was not accompanied by the presentation of planning designs, nor by official clarifications regarding the implementing bodies, nor the mechanisms for compensation and valuation, which raised fears that the project might shift from reconstruction to a redistribution of ownership in favour of foreign companies.

Abu Mohammad, who is from Qaboun, says that the proposed compensation would result in him losing the majority of his property, which consists of a small building of several flats constructed on land classified as agricultural. This means that the limited compensation would be distributed among all the flat owners. He added that treating these lands as agricultural ignores their reality, as they have been inhabited and built up for many years and form an essential part of the urban fabric of the area. He said he feels that this classification significantly reduces the rights of owners and makes any plan that does not reassess it unfair. For Abu Mohammad, any amendment to the compensation rates, such as raising them from 30 to 50 percent, would not be sufficient unless it is based on a fair valuation reflecting the current value of the properties.

Some residents of Qaboun told The Syria Report that compensation should be based on the actual value of the property, or that it should provide an equivalent housing alternative in the same location, rather than moving rights holders to distant areas. The damage to their homes is also substantial, requiring a comprehensive approach. Some of them believe that the lack of transparency is the main problem, as details of the plans or compensation mechanisms have not been presented, and residents have not been involved in decision-making.

One attendee at the meeting from Jobar pointed out that the proposed project ignores the fact that the area was subjected to extensive destruction during the war years and treats it as an investment space. He added that the current proposals focus on improving the urban appearance and raising the market value of properties, without presenting a clear vision for the fate of residents or guaranteeing their return, noting that talk of towers and projects along the main axes is being framed as investment rather than as part of the restoration of rights.

Mohammad Obeid runs the Facebook page “Network for the Protection of Jobar Lands from Real Estate Mafias”, which has hundreds of followers. He told The Syria Report that the proposal was leaked by attendees at the governorate meeting, including journalists, without any official announcement.

Mr Obeid added that the proposal contradicts the spirit of Presidential Decree No. 59, issued in March 2026, which provided for the formation of a national committee to rehabilitate infrastructure in war-damaged areas, and also contradicts Artilce 16 of the the Constitutional Declaration — Article 16 of which stipulates that private property is protected and may not be expropriated except for the public benefit in return for fair compensation. He Obeid warned that implementing the proposal could lead to widespread displacement in the name of urban planning and improving the general appearance of the affected areas. He called for widening the public debate before any final decision is taken.

Law No.23 of 2015

The signatories of the statement called for the adoption of the Urban Planning and Cities Development Law No. 23 of 2015 as the legal framework for rezoning their areas, while stressing that owners should be granted the right to partition or to establish joint-stock companies, and the right to choose contractors, and rejecting the imposition of any investment entities upon them. Law No. 23 of 2015 provides for a planning mechanism based on the redistribution of ownership within a zoned area, whereby properties are merged into a single block and then redistributed in the form of shares equivalent to the original ownership value of each owner, after deducting a percentage of the area for roads, public facilities and services. The law sets a ceiling for the deductions that does not exceed 40 percent in city centres, and may be higher in cases related to urban expansion or unzoned areas, in accordance with zoning plans.

In return, the law guarantees rights holders the acquisition of zoned plots or planning shares reflecting the true value of their properties before rezoning with the possibility of participating in the development of the area through joint-stock companies or through partition with developers. It also provides for the formation of committees to estimate value and resolve disputes, and allows rights holders to object before the courts to the results of valuation or distribution. The law obliges the administrative body to secure the basic infrastructure, while charging the resulting plots with certain costs according to a specified system, rather than through unregulated deductions from ownership. The implementation instructions of the law show that part of the land is mandatorily allocated to social housing and public facilities, and that redistribution takes place on the basis of detailed plans determining roads, squares and services, on the basis that each owner receives a fair, buildable share within the new plots, while preserving their rights through Land Registry entries and the supervision of compulsory readjustment committees.

Law No. 23 of 2015 also deals explicitly with informal settlements located within zoned areas. It permits their inclusion in urban zoning projects and subjects them to the mechanism of compulsory readjustment, even where the buildings constructed on them are unlicensed. The law recognises the existence of these clusters as an urban reality and permits the recognition of the rights of occupants or owners within the planning process.

In this context, the law distinguishes between the legal ownership of the land and the reality of existing occupancy, as it allows existing buildings to be taken into account in valuation, even if their construction was illegal, through value assessment committees that determine the rights of each owner or occupant according to the situation. It also requires the inclusion of rights holders in distribution schedules and allows them to object before dispute resolution committees and the courts. This means that the existence of an unlicensed building does not automatically lead to the loss of rights, but rather to its inclusion in a zoning process that legally reproduces it within the new plots. The implementation instructions of the law also indicate that areas of collective violations are addressed within planning schemes through their redesign and the provision of infrastructure and services, with the possibility of allocating part of the land to social housing, reflecting an approach aimed at integrating these areas into the formal urban fabric.

The signatories to the statement also proposed an alternative urban vision based on the adoption of high-density residential towers, which would make it possible to grant owners floor rights of at least 55 percent and allow residents to be accommodated in modern units, instead of plans they believe reduce their rights. They stressed that implementing infrastructure is the responsibility of the state, while charging the costs to owners amounts to an “illegal tax.” They also called for the urgent repair of water and sewage networks, holding the official bodies responsible for the neglect that they said had negative health effects on local residents. The signatories warned against any negotiations conducted outside the framework of their representation, adding that any agreement not passing through an authorised legal committee is non-binding. They called on owners not to sell their properties under pressure, and to hold firmly to their rights, in order to guarantee a return to their original areas under conditions that preserve ownership and dignity.

In an attempt to contain the controversy, the Board of Trustees of Jobar neighbourhood, an unofficial community body, confirmed that the current proposal remains a verbal and unofficial presentation and has not been submitted in written form, and that any final decision will be subject to study by a specialised committee and to the approval of residents. The board stressed its rejection of any project that does not achieve the minimum level of justice or does not guarantee the right to housing, affirming that its position does not oppose reconstruction but rather demands guarantees for the rights of residents.