Damascus Governorate Studies New Zoning Plan for Qaboun

The Damascus Governorate is currently reviewing its urban vision for the Qaboun neighbourhood, albeit without funding or reconstruction offers. The zoning plans proposed for this Damascene neighborhood – which suffered near-total destruction during the conflict – remain unresolved, with no move toward an executive phase.

The complex property-rights situation, limited return of residents, weak services, the lack of a comprehensive engineering survey and the lack of housing solutions further complicate any practical path forward.

During the war, Qaboun witnessed one of the most extensive campaigns of systematic demolition in Damascus. Its residential areas were almost entirely cleared due to fighting, as well as the policy of blasting and evacuating buildings pursued by regime forces between 2012 and 2017. After regaining control, regime forces continued demolition works for the purpose of extracting steel. Immediately after the Assad regime regained control, the Damascus Governorate began working on two separate planning tracks.

The first track concerns the Qaboun industrial area, which was included in Detailed Zoning Plan No. 104, ratified in June 2019. A zoned area was later established within it under Decree No. 237 issued on September 14, 2021, based on Law No. 10 of 2018 regarding the creation of zoned areas within the general zoning plan. The decree changed the area’s urban classification from industrial and agricultural to residential and commercial.

The second track concerns residential Qaboun. The governorate announced Detailed Zoning Plan No. 105 in June 2020, under Law No. 23 of 2015 on city planning and urban development. It approved the plan in principle and opened a one-month door for objections. However, the plan has since remained under study with no decree issued to ratify it.

Mahmoud Hilal, Director of the Urban Planning and Zoning Directorate in Damascus Governorate, told The Syria Report that his office has been working for months on preparing a new planning vision for Qaboun. This includes re-evaluating Zoning Plan No. 105 and linking it to neighbouring urban plans, including the Qaboun industrial area, Jobar, and Damascus’ northern entrances. Mr Hilal explained that the current study aims to understand how to integrate the neighbourhood within its broader urban context and to review previous plans in preparation for amending or replacing them, without specifying technical details or a timeline for decision-making.

Mr Hilal confirmed that no entity has so far formally applied to participate in reconstructing Qaboun, noting that talk of interest from local or foreign companies does not extend past general statements. He considered the lack of funding the main obstacle to any executive process, given the scale of destruction and the need for extensive infrastructure work and long-term engineering surveys before any urban investment can be considered. This reality reflects that current discussions remain confined to the planning stage, with no indications of moving toward execution or launching real-estate development projects.

The property-rights file represents one of Qaboun’s most complex challenges due to its mixed zone nature. The neighbourhood contains formally zoned areas, as well as vast zones of informal and irregular housing, in addition to religious endowment properties from the Sinan Pasha area. Mr Hilal indicated that the governorate is preparing special offices to receive residents and begin cataloguing and documenting properties, as many documents have been lost and land records overlap with irregular occupations that lasted for years. This file is essential for determining any future zoning plan, as the governorate cannot take executive decisions without a clear database of ownerships and rights, according to Mr Hilal.

In practice, since the fall of the Assad regime, only a limited number of displaced residents have returned to partially damaged homes in Qaboun, where they were able to carry out basic repairs for temporary housing. Mr Hilal said the directorate is concerned about the structural safety of many remaining buildings, as they have not undergone technical assessment or structural testing over the past years. This limited return does not indicate broader return potential, given the lack of basic services and the inability to use most residential blocks due to destruction or structural instability.

The neighbourhood faces major technical and logistical challenges preventing any real start to reconstruction. Mr Hilal noted the need for a comprehensive engineering survey to ensure the area is free of war remnants and unexploded ordnance, in addition to the extensive destruction that makes the cost of rebuilding essential infrastructure extremely high. The governorate is also currently unable to provide alternative housing for the large numbers of affected residents, making any implementation plan unfeasible before completing the ownership records and securing the necessary funding.