Marota and Basilia City After Assad: A Postponed Project and Applicants Without Housing

Following the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, work on the two zoned real estate areas in Damascus – established under Decree No. 66 of 2012 and known as Marota City and Basilia City – was halted. Discussions are underway to relaunch the project in a new form. A joint committee from the Ministry of Public Works and Housing and the Damascus Governorate is currently studying the issue of alternative housing for those affected in the project areas and is holding meetings to define what it calls “new standards” and a work framework for the upcoming phase.

The Damascus Governorate manages the two zones through the Directorate for the Implementation of Decree No. 66 and through Damascus Cham Holding, a private joint-stock company fully owned by the governorate, which serves as the project’s financial and administrative arm. On January 14, the governorate issued Decision No. 33 appointing engineer Ibrahim Hanano to issue directives and instructions on its behalf, supervising the work of the Decree No. 66 Directorate and Damascus Cham Holding.

Under Decree No. 66, the two zones will be established according to new urban plans, with original property owners compensated through zoning shares in designated residential plots. Right-holders are expected to construct their residential plots at their own expense. If a shareholder owns a large enough stake to equal the value of a standalone plot, they may directly apply for it; the governorate’s executive office would then issue a decision allocating the plot, and the property directorate would register it in their name. If their share is small, they may form a joint-stock company with others or sell their share in a public auction overseen by a governorate committee under Contract Law No. 51 of 2004. Although licensing procedures and construction have begun on some residential plots, none have yet been fully completed.

According to Decree No. 66, non-owners – especially those occupying properties under the old rent law – are to be allocated alternative housing, paid for in monthly instalments and an initial down payment. This alternative housing is part of a public-sector social housing programme and is not free. Eligible individuals from the real estate zone may subscribe to it. However, despite years having passed since the evictions, these alternative housing units have not been delivered, becoming a financial burden on applicants due to the lack of delivery and the rising installment costs.

The absence of real progress on both the planned residential plots and the alternative housing units is not solely a result of political conditions during the Assad regime’s control. It also reflects institutional weaknesses in the project’s management structure. For example, owners of plots in Marota City have faced major challenges over the years, such as acquiring building permits and obtaining prior security approval. Meanwhile, the Damascus Governorate has repeatedly threatened to confiscate and auction off plots if permits are not secured within set deadlines. On the other hand, Damascus Cham Holding failed to follow through with its responsibilities regarding alternative housing and had to contract a private company to build some towers in Basilia City. Although this appeared to be a rescue attempt, it has not produced any tangible results and has not been extended to the rest of the project, revealing the limitations of the experiment and the difficulties in financing.

Since the regime’s fall and the project’s suspension, no actual construction has resumed despite ongoing official statements about restarting it. Meetings between the Damascus Governorate and the Ministry of Public Works and Housing have mainly focused on alternative housing, without yielding clear implementation outcomes. In practice, there has been no formal review of how the powers of the Decree No. 66 Directorate intersect with those of the holding company, nor of the financial relationship between the two. This administrative ambiguity, coupled with the lack of updated cost assessments, has left the project in an operational vacuum, with no clearly responsible party for funding, implementation, or communication with applicants and rights holders.

Real estate expert Ammar Youssef told The Syria Report that freezing the project constitutes a “major disaster” for both the government and applicants due to its negative impact on property prices and owners’ rights. Mr Youssef explained that the project, in its previous phase, was primarily designed to benefit Assad regime figures through business networks that secured zoning shares via private agreements with original owners. He noted that 90 percent of the residential plots in Marota City are now controlled by such groups.

As for the review currently being undertaken by the Damascus Governorate, a correspondent for The Syria Report indicated that it is aimed at re-evaluating the criteria for alternative housing through a joint committee with the Ministry of Public Works and Housing. Official statements referring to a “new model” and “better standards” relate to the possible amendment of Decision No. 112, which governs eligibility for alternative housing, and Decision No. 1249, which concerns the mechanism for waiving subscriptions- the mechanism for transferring or relinquishing alternative housing subscription rights. Decision No. 112, issued in 2015, established strict eligibility conditions, most notably that the occupant must have been residing in the property from the date of Decree No. 66’s issuance until the moment of evacuation. This condition was used to exclude many long-time tenants and occupants, especially those who had to leave early due to security or economic reasons. Meanwhile, Decision No. 1249 imposed further restrictions on transferring subscription rights, reducing beneficiaries’ flexibility and forcing some to sell their shares under unfavourable conditions. The subscription mechanism itself remains opaque, relying on individual name lists that include warnings and final notices, often sent without assurance of delivery or proper case review.

Mr Youssef warned that changing the project’s founding criteria at this stage could create new long-term problems affecting current applicants’ rights. He added that the governorate has yet to propose serious solutions to address the problems with previous subscriptions or compensate those harmed by delayed delivery and increased instalment costs.

Another dimension of the problem involves Damascus Cham Holding, which manages the two real estate projects as both owner and main developer, through its operational arm, Damascus Cham Management. Mr Youssef revealed that much of the funding for the company and the Decree No. 66 Directorate in recent years came from the “Martyrs’ Fund,” which collected revenue from various sources, including fines on traders. However, despite the halt in activity since the Assad regime’s fall, the Damascus Governorate has not conducted any public review of the company’s performance or the contracts it signed with investors or contractors. The company’s earlier failure to complete the project has been attributed to multiple factors: lack of funding, bureaucratic hurdles, rising construction costs, and the dysfunction of public sector companies.

What remains absent from the official discourse is any mention of financial transparency, clarity on how public property included in the project is managed, or the nature of the relationship – regarding powers and responsibilities -between Damascus Cham Holding and the Decree No. 66 Directorate. To date, neither Damascus Cham nor the directorate has published a schedule for plot handovers or a clear timeline for completing construction. Meanwhile, complaints from beneficiaries and applicants continue to mount over delays and chaotic criteria.

In the end, despite all the political and administrative changes since the regime’s fall, there has still been no substantive review of Decree No. 66 itself or the experience of its implementation over the past decade. Even as the governorate speaks of “developing” and “updating standards,” it neglects the need to review the valuation criteria for affected properties and the share distribution mechanism on which the project was based. In this sense, any resumption of the project – if it occurs – without dismantling the original structure of Decree No. 66 would not constitute reform, but rather a reproduction of an exclusionary urban model based on forced dispossession, fragmentation of property rights, and transforming residents into applicants or involuntary partners in investment schemes beyond their control.