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In the 1950s, a large informal settlement, known as the Southern Midan Zoned area, emerged in the southwestern part of the Midan neighbourhood in Damascus. The area is bordered to the west by the Daraa-Damascus motorway and to the south by the Dahadil area.

For over seven decades, unresolved disputes over property claims and the faulty work of dispute resolution committees have left this area in legal limbo.

Most of the buildings in this informal area are unlicensed and constructed on expropriated land. However, it is difficult to classify this area as an informal settlement because its streets are planned, and its buildings largely adhere to construction codes, including multi-storey buildings of six to seven floors. A mixed population from the Midan neighbourhood in Damascus and the southern governorates of Daraa and Quneitra inhabits this area. According to estimates by a correspondent for The Syria Report, about 10,000 people live there.

In a regular meeting held in mid-January 2024, members of the Damascus Governorate Council called for the adoption of a recommendation to digitise and archive property records in the Southern Midan Zoned area to protect the rights of the owners due to what they described as stumbling in the work of the dispute resolution committees. The Director of Planning and Urbanisation in the governorate, Hassan Traboulsi, said that five dispute resolution committees were formed in the area without specifying the date of formation. He added that these committees have not completed their work due to the lack of information about old properties and the emergence of new residential and commercial properties in the area. Mr Traboulsi also mentioned that there is currently a study to issue a new zoning plan for the area.

At the beginning of the 1950s, the state expropriated private agricultural lands, some of which belonged to residents of the Midan neighbourhood and others to people from Daraa and Quneitra. Some of these lands were also dissolved properties, meaning properties that emerged from estates without heirs, or with heirs who did not meet the ownership laws, or from neglecting to use Amiri lands for five years, thereby making them into private state property.

Subsequently, five committees were formed that included judges, currently referred to by Damascus Governorate officials as dispute resolution committees. The Expropriation and Distribution Department was responsible for forming these committees. It is not known to which governmental body this agency belonged in the 1950s. However, a department with a similar name currently falls under the Directorate of Planning and Urbanisation in the Damascus Governorate.

The formation of these committees predates any of the urban zoning laws currently known in Syria, which seems to be the reason behind the confusion of the members and officials of the Damascus Governorate in naming and describing these committees. From the scattered information available, these committees appear to be tasked with multiple duties, from inventorying properties and assets and estimating their value to resolving disputes among rights holders. The responsibility of the Expropriation and Distribution Department for forming these committees indicates that one of their tasks was also to estimate the compensation value for the rights holders.

Therefore, the work of these committees parallels the work of three types of committees currently known under the prevailing urban zoning and planning laws:

The Inventory and Description Committee for properties in the area, including trees and crops, also conducts a social survey of the area’s residents.
The Real Estate Appraisal Committee deals with buildings, structures, and trees.
The Dispute Resolution Committee has judicial authority and is charged with considering objections and claims of ownership or real estate rights on properties within the zoning area.

In all cases, the work of the five committees formed in the 1950s was not completed, and no lists were issued with the names of the rights holders and their property shares. Compensation values were not determined, and the Dispute Resolution Committee resolved none of the disputes among rights holders.

Over time, with the unfinished work of the committees, the area has become a large, inhabited informal settlement with many unlicensed residential buildings erected on expropriated land. According to the Syria Report correspondent, the Damascus Governorate has no study on rezoning the area nor any social study on its current occupants and their rights. The former governor of Damascus, Bishr Al-Sabban, had said in 2008 that 2,000 occupancies in the area needed to be resolved before issuing the final zoning plan.

The Syria Report’s correspondent pointed out that the Damascus Governorate does not currently prioritise this area due to its lack of funding. However, it may later impose the area’s rezoning under one of the controversial urban planning laws issued during the war years, such as Law No. 23 of 2015 or Law No. 10 of 2018.

The Contractors’ Syndicate was established in the 1950s under the name of the General Syndicate of Syrian Contractors. Its operations were regulated per the provisions of the Construction Contractors’ Profession Regulation Law No. 237 of 1956, which was amended by Law No. 2 of 2006. The latest, and currently in force, Contractors’ Syndicate Law No. 9 of 2014 stipulated that all contractors should be members of the syndicate and changed its name to the Construction Contractors’ Syndicate.

According to Law No. 9 of 2014, a contractor is a natural or legal person registered at one of the syndicate’s branches, and a member thereof who executes contracting works such as building maintenance, roads, bridges, railways, land reclamation, dams, water networks, well drilling, electrical or mechanical works, marine constructions, and others. An individual contractor is referred to as a natural contractor, a contracting company as a legal contractor, while an engineering contractor is termed a de-facto contractor.

A contractor obtains a classification from the syndicate based on their financial situation and technical competence. According to the Ministry of Public Works and Housing Decision No. 2828 of 2021, based on Ministerial Decision No. 1296 of 2003, there are seven categories of contractors: an “excellent” category and six other categories ranked from one to six.

According to the annexes of Decision 2828, the engineering experience and positions previously held by the contractor and the projects executed are used to calculate the financial situation. For example, the general manager position is equivalent to SYP 300 million annually, while the experience of an overseeing execution engineer is equivalent to SYP 45 million. The equipment owned by the contractor is also included in the calculation of the financial situation.

According to Law No. 9 of 2014, a contractor must be Syrian, at least 20 years of age, not convicted of a disgraceful felony, not prohibited from practising the profession, have a suitable office that meets the standards set in the internal regulations of the syndicate, not employed in the public sector or joint sector, i.e., mixed private-public sector, and possess the required financial solvency and technical competence.

Contractors’ Syndicate and Construction Permits

Directive No. 11203/1 issued by the Prime Minister’s Office in August 2023 mandates that all construction permit holders must exclusively execute the construction by contracting contractors registered in the syndicate. The direct reason for this exclusivity is not clear. However, official entities justify it by the need to define roles and responsibilities distributed among administrative units, the Engineers’ Syndicate, and the Contractors’ Syndicate, especially after the disastrous outcomes of the earthquake on February 6, 2023.

Directive 11203/1 followed a series of meetings held by the Services and Infrastructure Committee of the Ministry of Local Administration and Environment, with representatives from both the Construction Contractors’ Syndicate and the Engineers’ Syndicate, to review the mechanisms followed for constructing buildings in Syria and define the roles and responsibilities of all parties in disaster situations. This led to a government task force composed of deputies from the Ministries of Local Administration and Environment, Public Works and Housing, and Water Resources, along with the heads of the Engineers’ and Construction Contractors’ Syndicates. The outcomes of the government task force were issued within Directive No. 11203/1, which included three main points: firstly, the necessity of adhering to the legal regulations and controls. Secondly, no construction permit should be executed except through a contractor accredited by the syndicate. And thirdly, the appointment of a resident engineer to oversee the project on the construction site.

In October 2023, the Ministry of Local Administration issued a circular, without a number, mandating administrative units not to grant building permits without a certified contract between the building owner and a classified contractor. This means that a construction contract has become an additional requirement for licensing. A construction contract is an agreement signed between the building owner and the classified contractor, acting as the builder. The contract includes the obligations of both parties, the duration of execution, specifications of the work, costs and fees, and payment schedules, as well as terms and penalties in case of breach of the agreement and its clauses.

According to the official press, ministerial directive 11203/1 and the Ministry of Local Administration circular impacted construction activity, resulting in a decrease in building permit applications and imposing high fees and costs on them. In addition to the contractor’s fees for the construction, the construction contract incurs fixed fees and other costs calculated as a percentage of the construction costs, which are collected by the Ministry of Finance and the Contractors’ Syndicate.

Therefore, anyone wishing to construct a permitted building in a zoned area is now required to pay engineering costs to the planning engineer and fees to the Engineers’ Syndicate, costs to the classified contractor performing the work and fees to the Contractors’ Syndicate, licensing costs and fees to the administrative units, and building materials costs and prices.

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