Profile: Expansion Areas in Aleppo City

For decades, the Aleppo City Council has been working on expanding the city, incorporating large areas, in the north and west, into its master zoning plan. While some of these expansion areas include informal settlements, they also encompass non-informal areas that have been fully expropriated, rezoned, and subdivided.

Since the approval of Aleppo’s master zoning plan in 2004, ratified in 2005, the City Council has prepared detailed studies and plans for 14 areas within it. These include informal settlements aimed at accommodating the city’s population growth. The total expansion areas stretch north and west of Aleppo, covering 24,000 hectares and encompassing the entire real estate areas of Kafr Hamra, Kafr Dael, Balleramoun, and Handarat, as well as parts of the real estate areas of Haritan, Al-Shuqayf, and Al-Castillo.

These fourteen areas had previously undergone a long history of expropriation or rezoning before 2004 under one of the following laws: the Cities Planning and Urban Development Law No. 9 of 1974, the Urban Expansion Law No. 60 of 1979, or its amendment by the Urban Expansion Law No. 26 of 2000. It is worth noting that the Planning and Urban Development Law No. 23 of 2015 replaced Laws No. 60 of 1979 and 26 of 2000.

However, under the 2004 master plan, all previous expansion areas were subjected to the provisions of the Urban Expansion Law No. 26 of 2000. Within the plan, the expansion areas were divided into eight areas and given new names: Northern N1-N2-N3-N4 and Western W1-W2-W3-W4.

For non-informal expansion areas, Law No. 26 of 2000 stipulated the application of its second article, involving the full expropriation of the area, followed by the preparation of a detailed plan after deducting one-third of the land for free, used for public infrastructure. The resulting residential plots, after valuation, are to be handled by selling 60 percent of them at cost price to public entities and housing cooperatives, and giving back 40 percent to the original landowners of the expropriated land.

Under Law No. 26 of 2000, the Aleppo City Council expropriated these areas, rezoning them, and divided them into plots ready for construction. The council took on the task of preparing the plots for construction, which included levelling the land and providing the necessary infrastructure and public amenities, such as roads, parks, water, electricity, and sewage networks. The costs of these facilities are added to the overall cost of the area, affecting the price of the plots that the council is entitled to sell.

There are three categories of construction-ready plots:

Firstly, plots for public structures: These include buildings for the city council, schools, hospitals, police stations, mosques, cultural centres, and sports fields. Public sector institutions are expected to construct these buildings and hand them over to the relevant authorities without any financial compensation.

Secondly, plots for service buildings: These include markets, commercial shops, and professional trade markets, which the city council has the right to sell to the private sector.

Third, residential plots: These are intended for residential buildings and constitute the largest portion, representing 60 percent of the total plots. These plots are allocated to housing cooperatives and public sector institutions for cooperative and social housing projects.

Additionally, within this category, shares equivalent to the estimated value of their expropriated properties are allocated to the original landowners, who must build on these plots at their own expense. Alternatively, owners can be paid expropriation compensation within five years of the expropriation decree.

The City Council allocated some of the construction-ready plots in the N1, N4, and W3 areas to registered housing cooperatives in Aleppo. The council assigned each cooperative a specific number of plots, distributed equally among them. These plots were sold to the cooperatives under official contracts, with payments made in instalments.

In late 2009, the City Council began distributing the construction-ready plots purchased by the housing cooperatives. The cooperatives are responsible for constructing residential buildings on these plots and selling them to their applicants. In 2011, the Prime Minister issued letter No. 14071 to the Ministry of Local Administration and Environment and the Ministry of Economy and Foreign Trade to complete the distribution and handover procedures for the plots allocated to housing cooperatives in the N1, N4, and W3 areas. However, the entire process came to a halt due to the revolution, the subsequent war, and the ensuing siege and destruction in Aleppo.

The Aleppo City Council did not fulfil its required tasks of preparing the plots for construction or providing them with infrastructure and public facilities. One of the flaws of Law No. 26 of 2000 is that it did not impose any time limits, financial penalties, or interest for delays in the rezoning and subdivision of the expansion areas. The law also did not require the administrative units to compensate those affected by the expropriation of their properties for delays in handing over the allocated plots or failing to pay expropriation compensation. The same applies to the housing cooperatives, which were unable to meet their commitments to their applicants.

Armed opposition forces managed to take control of parts of the western expansion areas, but in early 2020, regime forces, supported by militias loyal to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, regained control of these areas. Meanwhile, some northern expansion areas are currently under the control of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units. The remaining expansion areas are almost completely destroyed due to battles and heavy shelling by regime forces between 2013 and 2016.