No Compensation for Owners of Razed Properties in Central Darayya District

In the summer of 2018, the former mayor of Darayya in the Rural Damascus governorate, Marwan Obeid, announced on his personal Facebook account the commencement of a park construction project over an area of two dunums (0.2 hectares) that used to house old homes. Subsequently, municipal workers cleared the remnants of these houses and removed the debris. Since then, no change has occurred at the site, and none of the former property owners have been compensated.

The area, known as the Shreidi Triangle, contained large, old “Arab-style” houses built from brick and roofed with wood. In the triangle were six homes belonging to four families from the city: Al-Halaq, Abu Bakr, Koshk, and Fattah. Surrounding the houses were more than ten shops facing the adjacent streets, all dilapidated with thick walls constructed in the old style.

These properties were expropriated in the 1970s to create a public park. The residents resisted the takeover by staying in their homes, refusing to evacuate, and not accepting compensation for expropriation. Until 2011, the situation of these houses remained unchanged, and the expropriation decision was not implemented. In reality, the houses remained standing, but their structural safety deteriorated due to the owners’ inability to obtain restoration permits because of the expropriation decision. The owners were also unable to conduct any real estate transactions on them. The only action they took was to rent out some rooms facing the main streets as commercial shops.

The city of Darayya witnessed peaceful opposition to the regime since the beginning of the 2011 uprising. Due to its proximity to Damascus and the Mezzeh military airport, Darayya was subjected to a severe siege by regime forces between 2012 and 2016, which ended with the forced displacement of its inhabitants after entire neighbourhoods were levelled to the ground due to aerial bombardment by regime forces.

Local sources told The Syria Report that the triangle remained relatively intact until the forced displacement of its residents. These sources indicated that the area was subjected to demolition and bulldozing by the regime forces controlling the city between 2016 and 2018 and that the Triangle area was destroyed when the regime forces allowed the first visit to the city in 2018.

In 2018, the Urban Planning Directorate at the Ministry of Public Works and Housing discussed four proposed urban plans within the city of Darayya’s zoning plan. That same year, the Executive Office in the Rural Damascus governorate announced that the zoning plan for the city of Darayya was ready. In both instances, no change occurred in the Shreidi Triangle area, which remained designated as a public park.

In August 2018, the Rural Damascus governorate permitted residents to return, provided they submitted documents proving property ownership within the city and obtained prior security clearance. The partial return began in mid-2019. Since then, the city’s Executive Office has continued to remove some buildings it declares are at risk of collapse, unfit for habitation, or pose a danger to passers-by and neighbouring residents.

Abu Mohammad, one of the homeowners in the Triangle area, told a correspondent for The Syria Report that he owned a spacious Arab-style house comprising five mud rooms, a large courtyard, and shops facing the street. He added that before 2011, he attempted to lift the expropriation order on his house but lost the lawsuit he filed. In the winter of 2013, a military force affiliated with the regime took over the Shreidi Triangle area as part of its ground incursion into Darayya and established military sites there. Abu Mohammad stated that he remained in his house, confirming that the Triangle area did not suffer significant damage, did not witness notable battles, and was not subjected to bombardment. In the summer of 2016, Abu Mohammad and his family were displaced following the forced displacement of all Darayya’s residents, leaving his house intact. Only in 2019 did Abu Mohammad learn that his house, along with all the homes in the Triangle area, had been bulldozed.

Abu Mahmoud, the owner of a shop in part of a traditional clay house in the Shreidi Triangle, told The Syria Report that his old shop collapsed in 2012 due to lack of maintenance and the vibrations caused by indirect bombing targeting nearby areas. Abu Mahmoud had to move his shop’s contents to an adjacent room that was not damaged. At the end of 2012, he left Darayya and only returned in 2019 to find that the adjacent room had also been bulldozed, and he could not find any of his shop’s contents.

Everyone interviewed by The Syria Report, including homeowners and shopkeepers in the Shreidi Triangle, mentioned that they had not received any compensation for the expropriation of their properties before 2011. Today, after some of them returned and discovered the entire area was bulldozed, and they have yet to receive any compensation, any notification about the execution of the expropriation, or any notice requiring them to contact any official authority. Thus, it’s as if they never owned anything in the area, and the park, which had yet to materialise, was more important than their homes.