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Housing for Earthquake Survivors in Aleppo to be Built on Land Formerly Inhabited by IDPs

01-08-2023/in HLP, News /by Rand Shamaa

Recent weeks have seen government housing projects announced as part of the long-term third phase of the National Action Plan to address the earthquake aftermath (dubbed “People First”), which the Council of Ministers declared on February 15 and approved a month later. 

In addition to providing accommodation for earthquake survivors, these projects aim to rezone and rebuild some informal settlements in east Aleppo, including Al-Maasrania suburb.  

Suhail Abdul Latif, the Minister of Public Works and Housing, inspected progress on government housing for eligible earthquake victims on June 3. A week later, Prime Minister Hussein Arnous was briefed on the project, which consists of four buildings comprising 120 flats, each ranging in size from 65 to 90 square metres, with a total floor area of 10,000 square metres, at a total estimated cost of SYP 18.6 billion. According to official announcements last June, the project is about 28 percent completed. The Military Construction Implementation Establishment, a part of the Ministry of Defence, is carrying it out.

A source in the Aleppo City Council told The Syria Report that the government would build the housing project for the earthquake victims on the ruins of unlicensed buildings partially or entirely damaged in combat. The buildings, located near Sayyida Zeinab Street and the Paint Factory in Al-Maasrania, had been previously demolished by the City Council in March and April 2021. At the time, the City Council carried out a demolition campaign targeting 50 buildings, most of whose owners had been forcibly displaced to opposition-held areas in northwestern Syria.

However, the City council did not announce at the time about these demolitions, which were part of a beautification plan to upgrade roads, sanitation and water networks in the suburb. The project involved demolishing unlicensed buildings partially or entirely damaged in combat when the opposition-controlled east Aleppo between 2012 and 2016. The City Council refused to grant renovation permits for the partially damaged buildings because they were in areas of mass unlicensed construction.

It remains unclear whether the earthquake victims’ housing project will be built on the same parcel of the land previously seized in Al-Maasrania for the benefit of the Ministry of Public Works and Housing, where a youth housing project has been ongoing since 2002.

Al-Maasrania is located on the Aleppo-Raqqa highway near Aleppo International Airport. Initially, the suburb consisted of agricultural lands where construction was prohibited, and which were owned by the Sabouni, Benqisli, and Jabli families from Aleppo. However, informal settlements began to appear in the area in 1971, inhabited mainly by people who migrated to Aleppo city from rural areas. Many were employees in government institutions, ministries, police departments and the military. Since the 1970s, these newcomers would buy small plots of land and build unlicensed homes. It became customary for buyers to file lawsuits against the sellers to verify the sales, through which they obtain a court ruling confirming the transaction – the only document proving their ownership of the land. Meanwhile, the Directorate of Cadastral Affairs refused to document such sales, rejecting the recognition of its de facto subdivision and the existence of construction on it.

In 1982, the state confiscated agricultural lands in Al-Maasrania close to Aleppo International Airport, including 36 properties that it seized only partially. Nevertheless, the process of unlicensed construction on the partially seized plots continued. These properties extended from the Scientific Research facility to the east, formerly known as the Paint Factory neighbourhood, to the Sayyida Zeinab Mosque neighbourhood to the south and to the west in the Shulba neighbourhood. The City Council considered the entire Al-Maasrania neighbourhood an area of collective unlicensed construction. In 2002, ownership of the 36 partially seized plots was transferred to the General Housing Establishment, which launched a youth housing project to build 4,000 residential flats on a 68-hectare area. Of these flats, 215 were allocated as paid alternative housing for those who had been notified that their homes would be demolished in the project zone.

Then in 2007, the Aleppo City Council demolished 50 unlicensed houses in the youth housing project area. Law enforcement surrounded the area, assaulting those who tried to halt the demolition of their homes. The City Council promised that evicted residents would be given priority in subscribing to the paid alternative housing in the project area. However, by 2010, only a small portion of the entire project had been completed, much like all social housing projects in Syria.

Al-Maasrania became a dangerous area after 2012 due to its proximity to the airport. It was subject to air strikes by the regime until 2016, resulting in widespread devastation. In December 2016, all residents were displaced outside of Aleppo city. Then, on December 20, 2020, the General Housing Establishment cancelled the subscriptions of those who had not paid their required instalments in more than a year, essentially removing forcibly displaced people.

https://hlp.syria-report.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Logo-300x81.png 0 0 Rand Shamaa https://hlp.syria-report.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Logo-300x81.png Rand Shamaa2023-08-01 19:03:002023-08-02 08:25:06Housing for Earthquake Survivors in Aleppo to be Built on Land Formerly Inhabited by IDPs

Aleppo to Provide Temporary Shelters for Residents of Building at Risk of Collapse

17-01-2023/in HLP, News /by Rand Shamaa

Two temporary housing buildings have been completed in Aleppo’s Masaken Hanano district and will house residents of homes at risk of collapse, the governor of Aleppo told the state-owned Tishreen newspaper in early January. 

The units are part of a project–slated for completion by the end of 2023–that the Aleppo City Council launched in 2020 to construct 10 residences containing 224 apartments in Masaken Hanano, in Aleppo’s eastern neighbourhoods, a source on the council told The Syria Report. The council owns the units.

However, the units were not fully allocated for residents whose homes are at risk, unlike what the governor said. According to the city council source, the council will not distribute them as alternative housing but rather as temporary shelters for emergency or urgent cases. For example, people facing sudden eviction from their homes due to imminent collapse will be allowed to stay in the Masaken Hanano housing units for a renewable six-month period, during which time they must search for other housing. 

Unconfirmed rumours suggest that the 10 housing units project was built on the site of buildings that were destroyed by regime airstrikes during the period of opposition control over east Aleppo in 2012-2016. Thos destroyed buildings are said to have been owned by residents who were forcibly displaced from the area.

The city council plans to use the units to house some residents of the informal Al-Haydariyeh neighbourhood, which is now the site of a real estate development zone, the council source said. These residents will only be allowed to live in the units temporarily, until the housing units allocated to them are completed–which in turn will not be free of charge, as residents have to buy it.

Under Real Estate Development and Investment Law No. 15 of 2008, a real estate development zone may handle informal settlements, no matter the size of the latter. An administrative body subjecting an area to Law No. 15 may expropriate privately owned real estate located within that area in accordance with the Expropriation Law. In cases like this, the administrative body must allocate a portion of the residential plots it builds to sell to the owners of the real estate expropriated from that zone.

According to the website of the General Commission for Real Estate Development and Investment, the Aleppo City Council established the real estate development zone in Al-Haydariyeh in 2010. The 118-hectare zone was meant to “upgrade” the area, which contained unlicensed constructed buildings. The area is fully expropriated by the state, and all the real estate within it are included in the general zoning plan for Aleppo city, which was approved in 2004. 

Beyond the housing project in Masaken Hanano, the city council has a number of other units in the neighbourhood, as well as in Al-Sukkari and Al-Mashhad neighbourhoods that can be used as temporary shelters. Such buildings are owned by people who were forcibly displaced to opposition-held areas. They were partially damaged, though the city council rehabilitated a number of them in 2021-2022 and they now house families who were evacuated from at-risk homes in Al-Saliheen, Al-Fardous, Al-Maadi, Al-Maysar, Qadhi Askar and other neighbourhoods. 

In December 2022, the city council began demolishing some severely damaged and uninhabitable buildings in various parts of east Aleppo. The head of the city council said on November 9, 2022 that evacuations had begun for some 1,500 buildings at risk of collapse so that they could be demolished. He added that an action plan was needed to evacuate and find alternative housing for those residents, as a sizable portion of those buildings are still inhabited. 

For those forced to vacate their damaged, at-risk homes, temporary housing is not easy to come by. The city council requires that applicants meet a complex set of conditions before being granted such housing. One person who was evacuated from their home in Al-Saliheen neighbourhood told The Syria Report that the city council refused to grant them the temporary housing usually given to people in his situation because “he owns a car.” The justification wasn’t clear but it could be that the council considers a car-owner as being relatively well-off and hence not needing support. Other people said that wasta, or personal connections, were needed to obtain such housing, or payment of bribes to city council officials. 

https://hlp.syria-report.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Logo-300x81.png 0 0 Rand Shamaa https://hlp.syria-report.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Logo-300x81.png Rand Shamaa2023-01-17 19:18:042023-01-17 19:18:04Aleppo to Provide Temporary Shelters for Residents of Building at Risk of Collapse

Read also

  • Explained: Syria’s Residential Real Estate Sector, State Banks, and Real Estate Finance Companies
  • Explained: Compensation for Expropriation
  • Lands Belonging to Residents of Regime-Held Aleppo Areas Undergo Public Auction
  • Mysterious Report Announces 50 Homes to be Restored in Darayya
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