Profile: Cooperative Housing Directorate

The Cooperative Housing Directorate (CHD), part of the Ministry of Public Works and Housing, is responsible for regulating the cooperative housing sector. This sector is financed by housing cooperatives to provide affordable housing for their members. Since its establishment in 2008, the directorate has evolved, transitioning from working alongside the General Union  of Housing Cooperatives (GUHC) to replacing it in 2019.

The cooperative housing sector complements the social housing programmes implemented by state-owned construction companies. Housing cooperatives often rely on purchasing land from the state at low prices to build homes for their members. Additionally, building materials are sold to cooperatives at reduced prices. Members of cooperative housing schemes are treated similarly to those in social housing in terms of payment installments and allocations. However, an individual can benefit from only one of these options, and only once in their lifetime.

The first legislation to regulate various types of associations was Legislative Decree No. 65 of 1950. During the Syrian-Egyptian union, Law No. 93 of 1958 was enacted to impose Egyptian cooperative law, which linked all cooperatives, including housing cooperatives, to the then Ministry of Social Affairs and Labour.

In 1961, the GUHC was established to act as a syndicate for housing cooperatives. In 1981, Cooperative Housing Law No. 13 was issued to regulate their operations and establish the GUHC as a mediator between housing cooperatives and the Ministry of Housing.

Law No. 13 of 1981 stipulated that the Ministry of Housing is responsible for supervising and monitoring the cooperative housing sector, including reviewing the activities of housing cooperatives and the GUHC to ensure compliance with applicable laws and regulations. The law also mandated Ministry of Housing employees to attend general meetings of housing cooperatives, defined their roles in overseeing the cooperatives’ activities, and specified their compensation for attending these meetings, which is to be borne by the respective cooperatives.

Law No. 17 of 2007 amended Law 13 of 1981, introducing the Cooperative Housing Directorate of the Ministry of Housing for the first time. However, its establishment was delayed until the issuance of the Ministry of Housing Decision No. 616 in 2008. The CHD’s role is to oversee and regulate the cooperative housing sector. The Directorate shares supervisory duties over housing cooperatives with the GUHC.

Despite numerous challenges, the cooperative housing sector has managed to build approximately 220,000 housing units over the past decades, compared to only 77,000 units constructed by social housing projects.

In 2011, Decree No. 99 on cooperative housing was issued, abolishing all preceding laws and enhancing the role of the CHD in monitoring and supervising the GUHC and housing cooperatives. During this period, the impact of the Syrian war, economic deterioration, and the loss of control by the government over parts of the country significantly affected cooperative operations, leading to the shutdown of many cooperatives. The number of cooperatives declined from 3,159 in 2013 to around 2,500 in 2019.

Legislative Decree No. 37 of 2019 permanently dissolved the GUHC, transferring its duties, functions, and movable and immovable properties to the CHD within the Ministry of Housing. Following this, the Ministry of Housing launched an extensive campaign to dissolve and liquidate hundreds of inactive housing cooperatives, those without actual building projects, or those that had ceased operations.

The tasks of the CHD include overseeing and regulating all decisions of housing cooperatives, including the dissolution and liquidation of associations and the protection of cooperative members’ rights. The Directorate also reviews proposals and decisions from cooperatives, manages financing for beneficiaries of cooperative properties, and ensures that housing projects are completed within specified timeframes.

The Directorate is headquartered in Damascus and headed by the Director of Cooperative Housing in Syria. It has regional branches in the governorates, each overseeing the housing cooperatives within their geographic jurisdiction, led by a General Director of CHD for the governorate. Each directorate consists of several departments, including the Administrative and Financial Department, the Supervision, Control, and Follow-up Department, the Statistics and Information Department, and the Computer Division.

As a result of the dissolution, liquidation, and merger decisions led by the CHD, the number of cooperatives decreased to 1,860 in 2024, of which 1,481 are active. According to official figures, there are still around 800,000 applicants in the cooperative housing sector, with 94,000 cooperative housing units currently under construction.

The dissolution and liquidation of cooperatives have been a loss for the applicants, as the laws governing them only return the amounts paid by applicants in Syrian pounds upon liquidation. In addition to losing their housing, this also means that applicants lose the previous installments they have paid, due to high inflation and the depreciation of the Syrian pound.

The dissolution of the GUHC and its replacement by the CHD have not significantly changed the situation. The dissolution and liquidation of inactive cooperatives were not accompanied by the establishment of new cooperatives, and there have been no reports of housing allocations to applicants since 2020. The CHD allocated building plots to large cooperatives to assist with housing projects in rural Damascus, such as Al-Fayhaa suburb, most of which was allocated to housing cooperatives, although none of them completed the construction works. These cooperatives were supposed to build 11,000 apartments in Al-Fayhaa suburb by 2020, which has not happened to date.