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Master Zoning Plan Lifts the 50-Year Building Freeze in Tartous Seafront

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On April 24, the Minister of Public Works and Housing approved amendments to the master zoning plan for the city of Tartous, which includes changes to the eastern facade of the coastal corniche, known as the Tartous Seafront, under Decision No. 3202.

The amendments specify that the seafront will be divided into 45 zoning plots. Property owners can now review at the city council detailed plans, which include permissible building areas, the number of floors, and setbacks (distance between properties). According to the amendments, building permits can now be obtained from the city council for these zoning plots, ending a 50-year building freeze in the area. Property owners are also allowed to renovate their homes, despite the city council’s recommendation to demolish and rebuild them due to their dilapidated and old condition.

The seafront of Tartous is approximately 1,400 metres long and varies in width from 30 to 130 metres. It is currently occupied by small, old, dilapidated houses, home to about 15,000 people. Most houses in the area are single-storey and have many inheritors. The large number of rights holders in the seafront area, who own shares in scattered small properties, has made it resemble a collectively owned informal settlement that cannot be redeveloped without rezoning. Therefore, in 1976, the city council issued a decision to halt the issuance of building or renovation permits in the area, pending the release of the city’s new master plan.

Since then, a back and forth between authorities concerning  the number and size of the zoning plots designated for construction has added a layer of intricacy. There is a complex relationship between the number of zoning plots, the size of each plot, and the number of rights holders. For example, the more plots there are, the smaller each plot becomes, and the fewer rights holders there are per plot.

The master plan for the city of Tartous, issued in 1988, set the minimum area for a single zoning plot on the seafront at 2,000 square metres. The amended master plan for the seafront, issued in 2006, revised this minimum area to 900 square metres, creating 27 plots. In 2019, Tishreen University conducted a study that increased the number of zoning plots to 80, with a minimum area of 250 square metres per plot, each potentially containing up to five properties with dozens of owners, occupants, heirs, and tenants.

The Tartous City Council adopted the study, but the Ministry of Public Works and Housing rejected it in March 2022, insisting on keeping the number of plots at 27. The fewer plots there are, the larger each plot becomes, making it more feasible to construct large buildings and provide additional built-up areas that could benefit the Ministry.

In June 2022, the city council formed a committee that proposed a compromise solution: dividing the seafront into 45 zoning plots ready for construction, with areas ranging from 800 to 1,200 square metres.

The city council accepted the committee’s proposal, which was then approved by the Minister of Housing in its decision No. 3202 on April 24.

In any case, adopting 45 zoning plots ready for construction means that each plot will have a large number of rights holders. This requires their agreement to carry out the necessary administrative and engineering procedures to obtain a building permit for their plot. This is not an easy task, given the presence of dozens of heirs for each property, some of whom are absent or have emigrated.

On June 3, the state-run Al-Baath newspaper reported that, despite two months having passed since the approval of the master plan, none of the property owners had applied for building permits in the seafront area. Mazhar Hassan, an official of the city of Tartous, told the newspaper that this was natural due to the complexities and entanglements that have arisen with these properties after 50 years of a building freeze. He added that obtaining building permits requires new agreements or understandings among the rights holders in plots that do not meet the area requirements.

Even in plots that meet the area requirements and are free from inheritance entanglements, construction remains dependent on the financial capability of the owners, due to the high costs of building materials and labour, according to Mr Hassan. Al-Baaath added that the solution is for companies to undertake this type of construction and investment, as building properties on the 45 plots is not feasible relying on family or individual capabilities.

Demands for Zoning an Informal Industrial Area Near Damascus

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Owners of unlicensed factories and workshops in the city of Darayya in rural Damascus countryside called for the zoning of their area at a meeting with members of the Damascus and Rural Damascus Chamber of Industry in early November 2023. This area, as reported by the state-run Al-Baath newspaper on November 5, encompasses 450 facilities spread over 147 hectares.

Hikmat Al-Azab, the head of the Development Committee in Darayya and a member of the Parliament for the city, explained to the newspaper that these factories are situated on agricultural land, which complicates obtaining administrative and industrial licences and deprives them of investment benefits.

A correspondent for The Syria Report explained that this cluster of factories is located behind the Town Center commercial complex on the Damascus-Daraa international road. These unlicensed factories are built on unzoned agricultural land where construction is prohibited. The boundaries of this industrial area are unclear due to its overlap with informal settlements intertwined with Darayya city and Al-Qadam neighbourhood of Damascus, which has become part of the second-zoned real estate area of Damascus, known as Basilia City and was established under Decree No. 66 of 2012.

Mazhar Al-Sharbaji, former mayor of Darayya and former head of the Engineers Division in the Rural Damascus governorate, told The Syria Report that the lands behind the Town Center area are private agricultural properties extending to Darayya city. Some owners possess various land ownership documents, including court rulings and deeds. Meanwhile, the rest of the land is still undivided common properties.

This area was not destroyed during the war, though regime forces plundered some parts of it. During the war, some people built unlicensed dwellings on their own lands. 

This contrasts with what happened in the neighbouring city of Darayya, which was besieged by regime forces from 2012 to 2016, leading to the forced displacement of its entire population after entire neighbourhoods were flattened due to aerial bombardment by regime forces. In August 2018, the Rural Damascus governorate announced that residents could return to Darayya, provided they submitted documents proving property ownership within the city and obtained prior security clearance. The partial return of residents began in mid-2019.

Mr Sharbaji told The Syria Report that the lands on which the industrial complex is located are unzoned, except in two areas. The first is the area surrounding the Damascus-Daraa international highway, known as the southern entrance to Damascus, which was zoned in 2003. Here, tourist, commercial and industrial projects such as the Town Center, International School of Choueifat, Al-Methalya Food LLC and Tuffaha Bakery were established. The second zoned area is Al-Nazal neighbourhood behind Town Center, which includes factories and craft workshops affiliated with the Darayya City Council. In the vicinity of these zoned areas, unlicensed industrial and craft factories and workshops built on unzoned agricultural land extended to the Al-Qadam neighbourhood of Damascus. Successive municipal authorities in Darayya and in the governorates of Damascus and Rural Damascus turned a blind eye to these violations, despite some being large factories like Ice Man, Khalil Plastics and industrial warehouses, according to Mr Sharbaji. Some of these facilities obtained exceptions for their construction. However, in reality, they remained unlicensed and were built on unzoned agricultural land.

Notably, the owners of factories behind the Town Center, during their meeting with the members of the Damascus and Rural Damascus Chamber of Industry, requested the implementation of Cabinet Circular No. 10/15/B issued on April 19, 2023, to resolve issues related to the administrative and industrial licensing of their factories and to facilitate their access to investment benefits. However, Circular No. 10 is problematic as it restricts the licensing of all types of industrial establishments, including those based on the processing of agricultural products, to cities and industrial areas only. 

This led to the suspension of dozens of facilities outside these designated industrial cities and areas, whose owners had previously obtained preliminary approvals before the circular was issued. Implementing Circular No. 10 effectively means that none of the workshops and factories in the area behind the Town Center will be licensed. Despite media coverage in pro-government outlets, Circular No. 10 has not been published in the Official Gazette or any official government website.

Earthquake Workshops: Supporting Livelihoods Instead of Housing the Affected

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In recent days, the Ministry of State for the Development of the Southern Region has held workshops in the governorates affected by the February 6, 2023 earthquake, with representatives from various institutions, government agencies, chambers of commerce, industry, and tourism, and operations rooms in those governorates in attendance. The workshops discussed the stages of implementing the “National Action Plan for Dealing with the Earthquake’s Repercussions: People First,” established by the Council of Ministers on February 25.

Also in attendance were governors, executive office members in the concerned governorates, and directors of public institutions and companies focused on supporting livelihood projects for the earthquake-affected communities. In contrast, there appears to have been a decline in discussions about permanent government housing projects and temporary housing projects for the victims, which seem to still be in the process of being implemented more than nine months after the disaster.

Additionally, issues of documenting real estate ownership in informal settlements are still stagnant, with practical difficulties in implementing the executive instructions of Decree No. 3 of 2023. The decree grants tax exemptions to earthquake victims, some related to their entirely or partially demolished properties. One of the main difficulties is that most affected properties are unlicensed and located in unzoned areas, making it difficult for their owners to prove ownership. There are complex conditions for these property owners to obtain loans or tax exemptions to rebuild or repair their properties.

This delay in resolving the real estate problems caused by the earthquake poses an obstacle to the new government approach to addressing the impacts of the disaster, particularly in supporting the livelihoods of the affected communities. Livelihoods are inseparable from property rights. According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, livelihoods are sustainable if they can withstand shocks and difficulties and maintain capabilities and assets without depleting natural resources. Property rights, alongside work, are among the most commonly used assets to produce food for family consumption and to generate cash revenues that allow the family or individuals to meet other needs such as health and education.

Therefore, it seems that moving to the stage of supporting livelihood projects and seeking international financiers for them before completing the documentation of affected property ownership and before securing housing for the victims may be a misstep.

According to the definition of sustainable livelihoods, property rights are one of the most substantial resources available to people to increase and expand their assets beyond the available land and labour until they reach the full portfolio of assets necessary for sustainable livelihoods, including natural resources, social, human and financial capital, in addition to natural assets.

The workshops

While the governors shared figures on various accomplishments made on the ground, some local officials discussed the challenges facing the implementation of the National Action Plan. The State Minister for Southern Region Development, Diala Barakat, repeated the same speech in all workshops, describing the current situation, executive programs, and work mechanisms to implement the items of the National Action Plan, and talked about the minor and significant needs to determine the implementation mechanisms according to specified timelines.

The Minister allocated a significant portion of her speech in all the workshops to what she described as expanding the base of livelihood projects, targeting families that have lost their source of income to help gradually restore everyday life to the earthquake-affected areas.

The first workshop was held in the Aleppo governorate on October 23, attended by Minister Barakat and Aleppo Governor Hussein Diab. The Governor stated that 115 engineering committees conducted engineering surveys on more than 126,000 buildings in the governorate, and 453 damaged buildings were demolished. He pointed out that the implementation rate of the project to build 120 residential units in Al-Masraneya suburb and 320 residential units in Al-Haidariya suburb had reached 55 percent.

A similar workshop was held in the Lattakia governorate on October 24, attended by Lattakia Governor Amer Hilal. The Minister explained that the governorate had closed its shelters, and the current phase is related to recovery, activating economic activities, returning life to normal, and providing safe housing solutions for earthquake victims. The Head of Lattakia Governorate Council also mentioned problems concerning determining the ownership of demolished and cracked buildings. Meanwhile, the Head of the Operations Room in the Lattakia governorate confirmed that 60 percent of the buildings had been inspected, with 12,700 out of 20,000 buildings inspected. According to the decisions of the structural safety committees, 6,399 buildings need reinforcement, and 4,991 buildings need restoration.

The Head of Lattakia City Council emphasized that the Decision 555 Committee is responsible for proving real estate ownership. The committee is responsible for issuing lists of earthquake victims, including representatives from relevant public authorities such as real estate, finance, communications, civil registries, water and electricity institutions, and appropriate administrative units, as well as several civil entities.

Meanwhile, the head of the Governorate Council pointed out that many properties in the governorate are commonly owned, with informal housing areas that are unlicensed and unzoned. The head of Jableh City Council emphasized the need to secure state-owned lands to build alternative housing for earthquake victims, noting that 120 such apartments are being built, while the number of damaged apartments stands at 241.

The last workshop was held on October 25 in Hama, attended by Minister Barakat, Hama Governor Mahmoud Zanboua, and Idlib Governor Thaer Salhab. Mr Zanboua stated that 640 houses were restored, and 397 livelihood projects targeting earthquake victims were launched. Meanwhile, Mr Salhab said that the earthquake damaged 66 houses, including 55 partially cracked houses, and the rest were on the verge of collapse, with their residents evacuated.

Participants in the workshop discussed providing support to the victims to restore their livelihoods, creating material income sources for them, rebuilding service centres, rehabilitating damaged infrastructure, focusing on the most affected and vulnerable groups, and finding solutions to some problems related to real estate ownership data in rural and informal areas. Such issues often hinder the completion of transactions associated with providing facilities to the victims and granting them loans to repair their homes and other facilities.

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

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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.

Laws on Urban Expansion and Informal Settlements in Aleppo City

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On the outskirts of the eastern, northern, and southern districts of Aleppo city, 22 informal settlements have emerged, founded and inhabited by impoverished migrants from rural areas. These include Tal Al-Zarazir, Ansari, Harat Al-Shahadin, Salaheddin, Fardous, Karam Al-Daadaa, Haydariya, Sheikh Faris, Sheikh Khader and Sheikh Said. Three large informal settlements have expanded around villages outside Aleppo city: Nairab, Handarat, and Ansari. These were gradually incorporated into the city’s general zoning plan at different stages.

The expansion areas west of the city were zoned according to urban expansion laws that limited residential expansion to unregulated and undivided areas within the city’s general zoning plan. However, there are districts in western Aleppo that feature widespread unlicensed construction. These fall within the city’s administrative boundaries and zoning plan. The most notable of these are the districts of Rashidin and Kaliria. However, nobody refers to them as unlicensed construction areas because today, they are high-end residential communities inhabited by the middle class and do not suffer from a lack of services. Also, there are two large, old informal settlements west of Aleppo city and outside its zoning plan: Khan Al-Asal and Kafr Dael.

All the above-mentioned informal settlements were included in the amendment issued in 1991 to the approved zoning plan for Aleppo City. This amendment gave the homes there the status of two-storey Arab-style housing, which is a relatively new urban category specific to these areas. Under this designation, pre-existing buildings consisting of two storeys were licensed, which is the case for the majority of buildings in these areas, provided that they have at least 25 percent of the construction plot area without a ceiling, and that the width of the street onto which the building faces is at least five metres. The goal of that 1991 amendment was to regulate these areas and control unlicensed construction. However, the licensing for this new urban housing category was, in practice, only applied to properties belonging to people who had been given demolition notices in the area northwest of the Hanano district. And in 2012, with the issuance of the new zoning plan for Aleppo, the “Arab-style housing” category was removed from the building code system.

In 2000, the government issued Urban Expansion Law No. 26, amending Urban Expansion Law No. 60 of 1979, meant to solve the informal settlements in Aleppo. Article 7 of Law No. 26 identified several methods for dealing with these areas:

  • The first method was to apply the provisions of City Division and Urban Planning Law No. 9 of 1974, under its first and second sections, either through zoning or division. Typically, a local administrative unit undertakes the zoning process in unoccupied or sparsely populated areas, as the process is lengthy and complicated. Established informal settlements are subjected to division, allowing property owners to subdivide their properties. In both instances, the administrative unit is allotted a third of the area free of charge to construct roads, squares, public buildings and other facilities.
  • The second method involved the local administrative unit expropriating the necessary lands within informal settlements to create roads, squares, parks, public buildings and residential subdivisions per the Expropriation Law No. 20 of 1983. This method significantly burdens administrative unit councils due to compensation costs, and they lose the free third they could have gained through division or planning. Ultimately, only the main axes that will be expanded through this method will change.
  • Finally, the third method considered informal settlements as urban expansion areas, applying the second article of Urban Expansion Law No. 26 of 2000. This meant the complete takeover of the settlement, followed by preparing a detailed zoning plan after deducting the free one-third of its area. After estimating their value, the resulting residential divisions are dealt with, with 60 percent sold at cost to public entities and housing cooperatives, and 40 percent to property owners in the area. However, this solution cannot be applied to informal settlements already densely packed with buildings.

In 2004, the Aleppo City Council identified several informal settlements where it could apply Law No. 26 using the third method mentioned above. These included Al-Haidariya, where demolition notices had been issued, an area of mass unlicensed construction entirely confiscated for the benefit of the City Council. Also included were Jabal Badro and Sheikh Najjar. The City Council began preparing detailed zoning plans for these areas and tasked the engineering unit at the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Aleppo to propose planning solutions for other informal areas like Tal Zarazir, Al-Ansari, and the remaining informal settlements in 2005. However, none of the above methods were actually implemented in addressing Aleppo’s informal housing. 

Explained: Aleppo City Zoning Plans

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The earliest known landmarks in Aleppo date back to the Greek era, when the city was called Beroea. At the time, the city had a grid-like structure built around a citadel, the remains of which are today’s Jalloum neighbourhood and a network of commercial markets within the ancient citadel walls. During the Byzantine era, the city expanded, and districts like Bousita and Farafra arose. In the mid-13th century, suburbs such as the Misabbin and Dubbagha districts appeared outside the castle walls. In the early 16th century, new areas such as Mashariqa, Kallasa, Bab Al-Maqam, Bab Al-Nairab, Banqusa, and the Maraashi district began to appear as gathering spots for Turks coming from Maraash, with Christian suburbs arising in Salib Al-Kubra, Salib Al-Sughra and Al-Jdeida. During this period, new neighbourhoods appeared named after the major industries established there, such as the Al-Najarin (carpenters), Al-Bayada (copper or brass work polishers) and Al-Qazazin (glassworkers).

The first attempt to formally zone Aleppo dates back to the late Ottoman period. In 1867, the first municipality in the city was established and had an area of about 550 hectares. In 1882, the Ottoman authorities commissioned a German engineer named Jung to draw up the city’s first zoning plan. Jung adopted the principle of wide streets and a grid plan for the city, completing it in 1899. The Department of Technical Affairs in Aleppo adopted the project in 1915.

However, the zoning plans for present-day Aleppo date back to 1954, by the French architect André Gutton. He oversaw a new zoning plan with a Western urban character, with wide streets and multi-storey buildings, linking the city centre with its urban expansion zones. Under this plan, roads were paved, including the one that connected the Umayyad Mosque and the citadel, causing partial or complete demolition of some archaeological buildings, including Hammam Al-Wasani, Khan Al-Wazir, Khan Al-Saboun, Al-Matbakh Al-Ajami, and the Sharfia School.

In 1974, Japanese expert Banshuya made a new zoning plan for Aleppo, raising many objections. Based on this plan, the Aleppo municipality began to establish a new centre for the city on the part of the historic city centre. The municipality commissioned the engineering unit from the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Aleppo, with support from the Military Housing Establishment, to develop a study for the Bab Al-Faraj project, which included the construction of high-rise buildings and wide streets. The municipality expropriated more than half of the area allocated for the new city centre. It began implementing these city blocks on AbdulMunim Riyad Street. During the preparation stage, work crews found parts of the ancient wall of Bab Al-Faraj, which extends from Bab Al-Faraj Square to Bab Al-Nasr.

The Old City was subsequently added to the UNESCO World Heritage List, and the Ministry of Culture registered the neighbourhoods within the citadel walls as archaeological areas where demolition and construction are prohibited. Only restoration would be allowed in those areas under Decision No. 47 of 1979, coinciding with UNESCO issuing two successive reports in 1979 and 1980 calling for preserving Aleppo’s Old City. Just a few years later, in 1983, the World Symposium for the Protection of Old Aleppo, held by the Aleppo branch of the Engineers’ Syndicate, called for the preservation of the traditional urban fabric of the Old City while adopting new ideas to provide public services there.

The Ministry of Culture issued Decision No. 15 in 1986, listing some neighbourhoods outside the Old City walls as archaeological areas where construction and demolition are prohibited. A committee for the protection of the Old City was also formed. The escalating local objections to the Bab Al-Faraj project caused its suspension, the cancellation of Banshuya’s zoning plan and the establishment of a special Old City-dedicated office in the Aleppo municipality.

Then in 2001, the General Company for Engineering Studies (GCES) began studying the new zoning plan with an area of 41,000 hectares. The new project added 20,000 hectares to cover the needs for expansion until 2015; that included 4,000 hectares for the industrial zone in Sheikh Najjar, 8,000 hectares for residential urban development, 5,000 hectares as green tourism areas, and 3,000 hectares as protected zones around the city.

The GCES completed the zoning plan for Aleppo in 2004. Still, it overlooked key planning points such as transportation, services and investment activities. Consequently, the Aleppo municipality contracted again with the GCES to update the plan and issue several detailed zoning studies.

The general zoning plan for Aleppo was reissued multiple times in recent years, aiming to receive and study objections as part of the regular mechanism for issuing such plans. Most recently, in 2018, the plan underwent final approval by the executive office of Aleppo governorate. This plan was formally issued by the Decision of the Minister of Public Works and Housing No. 2650/S in April 2022, containing 30 areas for population expansion. The plan included two real estate development zones; Al-Haidariya, with an area of 80 hectares to accommodate 7,300 housing units, and Tel Al-Zarazir, with 60 hectares to accommodate about 6,000 apartments. The plan also put in place some industrial zones, such as in Khan Al-Asal. At the same time, the detailed zoning plan for the Karm Al-Jazmati informal settlement in east Aleppo was issued and added to the approved general zoning plan for the city.

How Informal Settlements Began and Expanded in Urban Aleppo

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Aleppo shares a trait with many other cities in the developing world: large, informal settlements on its outskirts. However, these settlements in Aleppo, as well as in most other informal settlements across Syria aren’t built with tin, but rather with the same materials used for licensed regulated construction. This means that the most important difference between informal and regulated neighbourhoods in Aleppo are the lack of engineering studies to account for structural safety. 

Informal settlements first appeared in Aleppo during the 1960s, and grew alongside the city’s expansion and population growth towards the end of the 20th century. Aside from natural population growth, migration from rural areas greatly contributed to this boom. The rural-urban migration was primarily in pursuit of the services available in the city, which were largely lacking in the countryside, such as healthcare, electricity, clean water, education and more. Furthermore, the concentration of factories, industrial and craft areas in Aleppo, along with the growth of formal institutions, attracted cheap labour from rural areas.

If the huge population growth in the city of Aleppo is a result of a lack of long-term regional planning aimed at revitalising and developing the countryside, then the explosion of informal areas is also due to a lack of long-term urban planning to accommodate this growth. Aleppo was not prepared to take in the increasing number of residents, nor could it provide the necessary housing and public services.

Informal housing emerged as a response to the housing crisis, due not only to a lack of housing supply from both the public and private sectors in Aleppo’s regulated areas, but also because of the high cost of these properties and the inability of incomers to afford them. Most of these new residents were low-income workers. Therefore, informal areas contributed to providing housing for a large proportion of these people and their number grew rapidly. In 2004, approximately 900,000 out of 2,200,000 people, or about 40 percent of Aleppo’s population, lived in these areas, according to estimates from the Central Bureau of Statistics.

Syrian laws have only exacerbated the problem. Urban Expansion Law No. 60 of 1979 confined urban expansion to unzoned and undivided areas within the approved general zoning plans for administrative units. The aim of Law No. 60 was to curb the emergence of informal settlements, regulate the real estate trade and provide zoned plots for public entities and housing associations to build on, thus supplying affordable social and cooperative housing. Law No. 60 restricted the zoning and subdivision of these areas to the administrative authority to which they belong. The expropriation, division and zoning of these areas were supposed to benefit this administrative entity and other public entities for public benefit purposes, as defined by Expropriation Law No. 20 of 1974.

Consequently, zoned residential suburbs like Hamdaniya and Hanano were established in Aleppo. Zoned, affordable, popular areas such as Ard al-Ajour and Bustan al-Qasr housing projects were also constructed. However, some of the housing associations, which were allocated plots for building in these areas, soon deviated from the projects’ objectives and began constructing luxury homes and villas beyond the means of low-income families. Moreover, the compensation to the owners of expropriated lands was unfair, and municipal councils’ disbursement of compensation to its beneficiaries was irregular.

Failure to pay the price of the expropriated land, and the delay in implementing many of the planned social housing projects, prompted the owners of many expropriated lands to divide their lands illegally and sell them to construction contractors, who then built unlicensed buildings on them, selling them cheaply to those in search of housing on the outskirts of Aleppo. Informal settlements began to expand, without taking into account the structural safety of buildings, given the absence of basic services and lack of planning studies for their subdivision. Furthermore, these areas do not adhere to the applied urban rules, legislation and systems, and buildings are constructed without following detailed zoning plans or building codes.

In 1991, the General Company for Engineering Studies (GCES), affiliated with the Ministry of Public Works and Housing, conducted the first statistical study of informal settlements in Aleppo, commissioned by the city council. These areas were documented on the general zoning plan of Aleppo and amounted to 22 districts. The GCES also prepared detailed zoning plans for five informal settlements. These were approved by the Aleppo City Council in 1994, and are as follows: Ansari Village, Masrania Road/Al-Bab, Southern expansion area, Sheikh Fares-Al Haydaria area, Sheikh Maqsoud-Ashrafieh area. None of those plans were implemented. 

On the other hand, the state saw these informal settlements as a solution to the housing crisis, exempting it from some of its primary responsibilities. Hence, the Syrian state unofficially bestowed some legitimacy on these informal areas, by allowing state institutions to provide them with minimal water, electricity, sewage networks and some municipal services, while nevertheless prohibiting the formal documentation of these buildings in Land Registry. These informal settlements in Aleppo have been serviced with the bare minimum facilities, at the expense of their residents.

Property Extortion in Damascus’ Ash Al-Warwar Informal Settlement

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Over the course of the war, many residents of the informal Ash Al-Warwar settlement in Damascus have been expelled from their homes due to their sectarian or ethnic affiliations or their political orientations. Militias loyal to the regime or newly displaced people to the area have seized the properties of these absentees.

Ash Al-Warwar emerged in the early 1970s as a series of scattered buildings in a rugged mountainous area overlooking Barzeh Al-Balad, a Damascus district. These buildings were constructed on public properties that the residents seized and divided into small plots of land on which they built tightly connected homes devoid of construction safety conditions. The land is owned by the municipalities of Barzeh in Damascus and Maaraba in Rural Damascus, which means it falls administratively under those municipal authorities. However, the governorate of Damascus is directly responsible for providing services in the settlement, while it is under the authority of Al-Qaboun police force.

Most residents of Ash Al-Warwar are Alawites from the Masyaf area in the Hama governorate, and some neighbourhoods are named after Masyaf villages, such as Deir Mama, Al-Naqir and Baarin. The settlement also includes small neighbourhoods of Sunni migrants from Deir-ez-Zor and Al-Qalamoun in Rural Damascus, as well as Kurdish migrants from northeastern Syria. A significant proportion of residents are from low-income families and are minor public sector and ministry employees, especially in the army and security agencies.

Public services in Ash Al-Warwar were already poor before 2011 on various levels. For instance, the area was not served by a transport line to and from the capital city and taxis often refused to enter it due to its rough and narrow roads. The water and sanitation network was dilapidated, and residents often extended sections of it at their own expense, without supervision and maintenance by the government water and sanitation institutions. Residents depended on securing their consumer and food needs from the nearby Barzeh neighbourhood due to the lack of public markets in Ash Al-Warwar.

In 2011, with increasing sectarian polarisation with Barzeh, armed popular committees loyal to the regime formed in Ash Al-Warwar and integrated with the National Defence Forces, a regime militia, by the end of 2012. The National Defence Forces in Ash Al-Warwar and opposition forces in Barzeh engaged in violent battles that, by 2013, destroyed the frontline area between them. Both sides also exchanged sectarian cleansing operations to expel the remaining Sunnis from Ash Al-Warwar and Alawites from Barzeh. The National Defence Forces seized these homes in Ash Al-Warwar, distributing them to the families of its fighters from the neighbourhood and to displaced Alawite people coming from Al-Baath Street in the nearby Tishreen informal settlement next to Al-Qaboun.

Aliaa is originally from the Syrian coast and now lives with her husband in a formerly predominantly Kurdish neighbourhood of Ash Al-Warwar. The Kurdish residents, who were mostly Sunni, refrained from open conflict against regime forces on a sectarian basis in most parts of Syria, including Ash Al-Warwar. However, most of the Kurds were expelled from Ash Al-Warwar, and the National Defence Forces took over their houses to accommodate the families of its fighters. Aliaa says that some of these Kurdish families migrated to Europe, while others ended up in Hassakeh. She adds that the National Defence Forces justified the seizure of their properties by saying that a Kurdish state had been established in northeastern Syria and that they should move there.

According to Aliaa, two years ago few of those Kurdish residents returned to Ash Al-Warwar and demanded their homes back. Some of them sought help from the Fourth Division detachment present in Ash al-Warwar in order to evict the current occupants of their homes. In some cases, the Fourth Division intervened and evacuated the occupants, after the returnees showed water and electricity bills, and witnesses from their old Alawite acquaintances and neighbours testified that they were the original homeowners. In other instances, the current occupants of those properties refused to leave.

Ramia is a young Kurdish woman who used to live in Ash al-Warwar with her mother and siblings, in a two-storey building built by her late father. As the violence in the neighbourhood escalated during the war, all her male siblings migrated to Europe, and Ramia moved to live in the neighbouring Kurdish-majority RuknEddin neighbourhood in Damascus. National Defence Forces took over their building and distributed its apartments to the families of its fighters. Ramia kept all the documents proving her family’s ownership of the building, which are receipts for paying water, electricity and telephone bills. About a year ago, Ramia filed a complaint with the Public Prosecution, accusing the occupants of the building of theft. One of the lawyers told her that she would not be able to reclaim the building by filing a property seizure lawsuit, but only if she filed a criminal complaint. Ramia accompanied a police patrol, to which she paid a hefty bribe, that helped her recover the building.

It is difficult for residents to file property extortion lawsuits, as they do not have sufficient property documents. Therefore, it is easier to file a complaint to the Public Prosecution in Damascus, where the complainant reports that their home has been robbed, then extorted. The prosecution then transfers the complaint to Al-Qaboun Police Department, which in turn sends a police patrol to the house to evacuate its occupants. The patrol requests on-site witnesses to confirm the complainant’s ownership of the house. In other instances, the complainant seeks help from the Fourth Division’s local detachment to carry out the same task, even though it is not within its jurisdiction.

Saeed is from Idlib and lived in a neighbourhood mostly inhabited by people from Deir-ez-Zor in Ash Al-Warwar. He was forcibly evicted from his home after a group of young men broke into it, assaulted him and accused him of belonging to an opposition faction. Most of the Sunni residents evicted from Ash Al-Warwar were from Idlib. Usually they were driven out by arresting family members, accusing them of belonging to opposition factions and threatening intimidation. Saeed did not leave the country but ended up renting a house in a nearby neighbourhood. An Alawite family now lives in his home in Ash Al-Warwar. Saeed fears approaching any type of authority to reclaim his house, and he has no intention of returning to the neighbourhood after what he has endured there. Saeed’s ultimate hope is for the family living in his house to pay him rent.

Rida, a young Alawite man, lived with his family in a rented house in the nearby Barzeh Al-Balad neighbourhood. Rida has a brother working in the intelligence services, and the whole family supports the regime. The family was threatened by opposition factions to leave Barzeh, through pamphlets placed in front of their house urging them to leave the neighbourhood, and by writing threats on their door.

Rida’s family left Barzeh in late 2011 and lived in a building in Ash Al-Warwar, the owner of which is from Barzeh and had also been displaced from the neighbourhood. The building consists of three storeys near the main road leading to Tishreen Military Hospital. Rida’s family took over the entire building, refusing to share it with the National Defense Forces. In 2016, a confrontation broke out between the two parties, involving bombs and light weapons. The family still lives in the building, supported by the local mukhtar, known for his strong relations with high-ranking officials in the security and military services.

National Action Plan and Official Earthquake Response in Regime-Held Territory

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Updated on May 29, 2023: We corrected the date of the announcement of the government plan to February 25, from April 25 in the original version.

On February 25, the Syrian government announced the so-called “National Action Plan for Dealing with Earthquake Aftermath – People First,” which addresses the impacts of the February 06 earthquake and restores buildings to their pre-earthquake condition. 

According to the announcement, the government started implementing this plan immediately after the quake and will complete it in 2025. The Higher Relief Committee, chaired by the Minister of Local Administration and including ministries and governmental and non-governmental bodies, leads the plan and oversees its execution.

The plan addresses the earthquake’s aftermath and sets objectives and outcomes that the government must achieve. It also establishes performance and impact indicators as well as a timeline. However, though the plan is filled with promises, it lacks efficient implementation mechanisms, funding monitoring, and clear funding sources. 

The most significant issue in the plan is its conflation of the effects of war and the earthquake. The plan’s approach to these impacts is limited to formally zoned areas. It assumes that the solution in non-zoned areas is simply re-zoning by demolition and reconstruction. The plan does not mention preserving rights or dealing with absent property owners.

The plan is divided into four stages: the first stage is emergency response, aimed at meeting basic humanitarian needs immediately after the disaster. This includes technical inspections of damaged buildings and paying rent compensation for those wishing to rent homes temporarily. The first stage is presumed to have ended, but it remains to be seen if the government actually met its objectives.

The plan’s second stage is for recovery and rehabilitation, which involves assisting affected communities in returning to their everyday lives. Syria is currently presumed to be in this phase, which includes removing debris from buildings destroyed during the earthquake, with a completion date by December 2023. It is unclear how buildings destroyed by the quake will be distinguished from those damaged during the war, given an official inclination to blur the two to increase the count of earthquake-damaged buildings. This second stage also includes facilitating the process of obtaining legal documentation for those affected by the quake, ensuring their legal rights and statuses are settled. It also involves assistance for owners of private properties in zoned areas that were affected to rebuild collapsed or at risk of collapsing buildings and repair cracked ones.

Addressing quake damages in informal settlements has been deferred to the third stage of the action plan, which has not yet begun. This stage involves reconstructing and zoning informal settlements and improving the urban environment to make it better than before the earthquake and war. This means rebuilding the earthquake-damaged informal settlements by creating alternate zoned areas under the purview of the Ministry of Public Works and Housing and the Ministry of Local Administration.

The fourth stage provides an enabling environment to systematically deal with the earthquake’s aftermath so that the government bases its decisions on accurate data.

Ambiguities aside, authorities in Damascus continue to fall short in dealing with the effects of the earthquake. The legislative response to the earthquake has only addressed the destruction of real estate properties from a financial perspective. This includes Legislative Decree No. 7 of 2023, which establishes the National Fund to support those affected by the earthquake, aiming to provide financial assistance and help them overcome physical, material or moral damage. While waiting for its executive instructions to be issued, it remains unclear whether Decree No. 7 will provide any compensation for damages to homes and real estate properties.

Similarly, Legislative Decree No. 3 of 2023 granted those affected by the earthquake certain tax exemptions, some of which relate to their wholly or partially demolished properties. The decree enabled them to access loans to repair their damaged properties. Neither Decree No. 3 of 2023 nor its executive instructions mentioned financial compensation for repairing affected properties, rent allowances for those who lost their homes or any commitment to provide alternative housing, even if not free of charge. For someone to benefit from the tax exemptions included in Decree No. 3, a specialised committee must first identify those affected by the earthquake in each afflicted governorate. The affected individuals must submit their official documents to the committee, a police report confirming damage to their properties, and a record from the public safety committee identifying the nature of the damage. According to these conditions, owners of unlicensed buildings not formally registered in the Land Registry may not receive compensation or tax exemption.

Notably, about three months after the earthquake, the General Directorate of Cadastral Affairs has yet to issue instructions or decisions to address the widespread destruction of real estate properties in government-controlled areas. The Syrian legislative system does not contain any law related to real estate damaged by natural disasters. Previous laws addressing real estate issues have needed a more serious approach to housing, land, and property rights for those affected by natural disasters or wars. In all cases, these laws distinguished between homes built with permits and those without and between informal settlements and zoned areas.

Explained: The Tax on Informal Roofing and Housing

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The Syrian state has continuously refused to recognise the existence of housing in informal settlements. Instead, it insists on considering them uninhabited land, which may include private agricultural land on which construction is prohibited or public property. At the same time, state institutions have provided essential public services to informal housing areas, such as water, electricity, telephone services, built schools, and paved roads.

Meanwhile, residents in informal settlements pay some fees, such as sanitation, electricity, and water bills, in addition to being charged a rooftop tax, which is a tax on every existing roof. All real estate properties, regardless of the type, including residential buildings, shops, and facilities, are subject to the tax. However, the law does not provide a specific definition for the rooftop tax; it is generally defined as any fee or tax the state imposes on all properties. Taxpayers pay the governorate financial departments, with the most prominent example being the real estate and building plots income taxes.

The Real Estate and Building Plots Income Tax Law, issued by Decree No. 53 in 2006, imposed an annual tax on all rooftops, regardless of their type, such as residential buildings, shops and facilities, in both zoned and informal areas alike. According to the real estate register records, the government mainly applies the tax on the property owner. However, Decree No. 53 allowed financial departments in governorates to charge the property occupant for this tax, even if Land Registry documents do not establish their ownership. It is sufficient for the owner to submit documents accepted by the financial departments to charge the tax, such as water and electricity bill payments or a standard property sales contract. Charging the people who build unlicensed construction over extorted public property is also permissible. Decree No. 53 explicitly stated that this tax does not constitute a formal document for transferring or proving ownership.

Essentially, the principle of the rooftop tax is to impose it on those whose ownership is established in the Land Registry, as this is the legal indication that they are benefiting from the property in question. However, financial departments can impose the tax on the property beneficiary, as is the case with a property buyer under a court ruling. The tax can be imposed on them if they possess and benefit from the property. This actual owner can submit any document that the financial department can rely on to justify collecting the tax from them. Financial departments are only concerned with collecting the tax, especially since the law considers paying the tax and any documents issued by the financial department regarding its payment as not constituting proof of ownership.

A judicial ruling of the Court of Cassation, issued in Decision No. 50, Basis 385 by the General Authority of the Court of Cassation in 2018, in the context of investigating the tax liability on the right of a furough shop, stipulated that the tax liability cannot be relied upon to determine the shop owner for furough, especially amid any legal dispute over ownership. Furough refers to lease contracts for shops with an indefinite duration, signed before the enactment of Rent Law No. 10 of 2006, and subject to the system of compulsory extension, regardless of the landlord’s wishes and intentions. 

Paying the rooftop tax in informal housing areas does not grant the properties legal recognition. Since informal settlements and all the housing they contain are not recorded in the Land Registry, property owners in these areas are partners in common ownership, with their shares being non-subdivided. Planning Law No. 46 of 2004 allowed shareholders in informal settlements to license existing unlicensed buildings. This was in exchange for a financial guarantee to cover the expenses of servicing such areas, as estimated by the administrative authorities. This could have been a possible entry point for legal recognition of rooftops within informal housing areas. Law No. 46 did not specify any particular tax that must be paid for building licensing, and thus any tax imposed on the property can be considered a rooftop tax.

However, Law No. 46 went unimplemented until it was repealed by the Planning and Urban Development Law No. 23 of 2015. Law No. 23 allowed owners of land outside a zoned area to apply for converting the land into plots slated for construction, provided that they pay the necessary expenses for connecting public utilities such as roads, sidewalks, water and electricity. The law thus eliminated the possibility of licensing existing unlicensed buildings in zoned areas.

Earthquake-Related Damage in Rural Aleppo Governorate

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The recent earthquake caused extensive damage to parts of the Aleppo governorate under the control of various armed opposition, including Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS).

This article will delve into the impacts of the earthquake on Souran, Al-Atareb and Afrin and the reasons behind the damages in the cities. 

Souran

Souran, located north of the city of Aleppo, has remained under opposition control since 2012, though it did not witness heavy regime bombardment or fighting relative to other parts of the country. The earthquake killed 33 people in Souran after they were trapped under the rubble of their homes. More than half of them were displaced people from rural parts of the Idlib governorate, while the rest were originally from the city. 

According to an official from the Souran Local Council, which is affiliated with the Turkish-backed Syrian Interim Government, the earthquake destroyed 80 buildings, including some single-storey homes that were built more than 40 years ago. However, most buildings that fully collapsed were constructed within the past decade and had multiple storeys. Some 110 buildings in Souran are at risk of collapse from the earthquake and require demolition, while 180 buildings were partially damaged and need restoration work. In addition, four mosques, two main water cisterns, and six schools, including a Quran school, were badly damaged.  

Most of the buildings that were damaged, whether fully or partially, were constructed without licences, according to the local council official. The council had become unable to control the rapid trend of informal construction. 

The Souran Local Council did not open any shelter centres after the earthquake, but did receive some aid, including tents, from NGOs operating in opposition territory. The council distributed these tents to those in need, who set them up in front of their damaged homes. The city came to resemble an encampment. 

The area’s brittle soil and the lack of a rocker layer near the surface are one of the main reasons why these homes collapsed. Souran is in an arid region; its soil is around 20 metres thick. The most suitable houses for such an environment are one-storey homes with adequately studied and reinforced concrete foundations. In practice, however, such homes are more expensive to build, which many residents and displaced people in the area cannot afford, especially after years of war and the country’s acute economic crisis. 

Afrin

The city of Afrin is located in the northwestern part of Aleppo governorate and is the administrative centre of its region. The entire area had been controlled by the majority-Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) from 2012 until 2018 before Turkish-backed opposition forces seized the area during Operation Olive Branch. The fighting displaced a large portion of the area’s original Kurdish residents. Afrin Local Council is currently responsible for the city administratively and services and is affiliated with the Turkish-backed Syrian Interim Government.

Contrary to what happened in the rural town of Jandares in Afrin, which saw the most severe earthquake damage in Syria’s opposition-held areas, only four residential buildings fully collapsed in Afrin city. As a result, 16 people were killed. In addition, 204 buildings saw extensive damage that made them uninhabitable and at risk of collapse. Another 3,458 buildings were partially damaged and needed reinforcement and restoration work, according to a local council official who spoke with The Syria Report. 

Most of the damage in Afrin city was concentrated along Sharaa Al-Faylat, a relatively newly constructed area that saw unlicensed construction during the period of YPG control. After 2018, contractors with close ties to opposition factions worked to expand the unlicensed construction in this area of the city, including vertical expansion by building additional storeys to existing buildings. 

The earthquake displaced 3,500 families to 40 shelter centres and tented encampments within the city and its outskirts, which the local council had set up. Some shelter centres and camps can accommodate 300 families, while others are only big enough for 30-40 families. Other families set up camps near their houses. 

Al-Atareb

Al-Atareb is among the largest cities in the rural western Aleppo governorate and is located near the administrative border with Idlib. The city is controlled by the HTS-affiliated Syrian Salvation Government (SSG). 

Regime forces have waged repeated aerial and artillery bombardment campaigns on Al-Atareb since 2013. The most infamous massacre there was carried out by Russian forces, which fired highly destructive missiles on the city’s centre, including its souk, in late 2017. Over 100 civilians were killed in the attack, and dozens of residential and commercial buildings were destroyed. Many other buildings that remained intact were nevertheless cracked. Regime forces also hit the city hard during its final military campaign in the area in 2019-2020. 

In addition to the direct damage to urbanisation and infrastructure, the bombing also caused indirect damage, represented by the disturbance of the soil and the foundations of buildings, which helps to explain the severe impact of the earthquake on the city. During the quake, 200 buildings fully collapsed, including single-storey houses and multi-storey apartment blocks. Another 300 buildings partially collapsed. The damage killed around 250 people and injured 500. 

Hundreds of impacted families headed to nearby shelter centres set up by the SSG, while others left the city and went to camps located further north along the border with Turkey (most of the latter were previously displaced families not originally from Al-Atareb). Most city residents set up tents near their partially and fully damaged homes, as well as in public squares and streets. Non-governmental, local initiatives played the most significant role in distributing aid to those impacted by the quake, according to The Syria Report’s correspondent in the area. 

Aleppo: Earthquake Destroys Buildings Previously Damaged by Regime Bombing, While Pro-Iran Militias Remove the Rubble

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In Aleppo, damage from the devastating February 6 earthquake centred around the city’s eastern neighbourhoods. There, most of the buildings that fell had already been cracked, while some were at risk of collapse due to previous bombardment by regime forces in the area. 

During a press conference on February 19, the governor of Aleppo said that 53 buildings had collapsed entirely due to the earthquake. A source in the Aleppo City Council told The Syria Report that 50 of the 53 collapsed buildings were in formerly opposition-held parts of east Aleppo. Some of these collapsed buildings were uninhabitable, abandoned and already at risk of falling. In addition, in eastern Aleppo, ten mosques and many school buildings partially collapsed, all of which had previously been damaged by regime bombings in the area.

The other three collapsed buildings, of 53, were reportedly old and dilapidated in the Saif Al-Daula and Al-Azizia neighbourhoods in the city centre. No collapses were recorded in Aleppo’s western neighbourhoods that were spared the armed conflict of recent years. 

The governor of Aleppo said in his press conference on February 19 that 220 at-risk buildings were demolished, but he did not specify the locations of those buildings. The Syria Report correspondent said that at least 58 buildings were destroyed in the eastern neighbourhoods of Aleppo until February 18. The correspondent noted that Aleppo City Council work crews had demolished some of those buildings on recommendations from the construction safety committees. The council also ordered dozens of residents in other cracked buildings to evacuate so that those could be demolished. 

Notably, joint work crews affiliated with militias loyal to the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC): the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) and Failaq Mudafain Halab (Aleppo Defenders Corps) handled the demolition of most of those 58 buildings. They swept away a portion of the rubble to reopen local streets. Failaq Mudafain Halab is considered among the main components of Hezbollah in Syria. It has military, security and public services authority over large parts of Aleppo city. After the earthquake, the PMF sent Failaq Mudafain Halab work crews and equipment to help clear the rubble. These joint work crews are now demolishing additional buildings in Al-Ferdaus and Jisr Al-Haj neighbourhoods of east Aleppo. 

East Aleppo is home to large informal settlements where opposition forces took hold between 2012 and 2016. Regime forces besieged the area, bombarding it with missiles, heavy artillery fire, and airstrikes by the Syrian and Russian air forces. Direct bombardment destroyed vast swathes of these neighbourhoods. 

After regime forces retook east Aleppo with the help of loyalist militias, neighbourhoods there saw frequent building collapses due to the lasting effects of indirect bombing damaged by missiles. Most of these damages were not immediately visible, impacting the building foundations due to the loosened ground soil. The bombing also destroyed the water and sewage networks, thus allowing water to leak into the foundations of the buildings, thus exposing them to danger. In November 2022, the Aleppo City Council began a campaign to demolish 1,500 structures at risk of collapse. 

The city council allocated more than 200 shelters for survivors of the recently collapsed buildings and for people who needed to leave homes put at risk of collapse by the earthquake. These shelters were mainly in east Aleppo schools, mosques and gymnasiums. Some were also located in the silk market in Al-Furqan neighbourhood of western Aleppo city. Residents impacted by the evacuations were moved to 150 apartments that the city council had allocated as temporary housing in the Masaken Hananou neighbourhood and 25 apartments belonging to the Directorate of Railways in the Rehabilitation and Training Building in Al-Shaikh Taha. 

However, these shelters were not enough to accommodate all those fleeing their cracked homes, fearing earthquake aftershocks. Two weeks after the earthquake, hundreds of families are still sheltering in tents beneath the Jisr Al-Shaar, Jisr Maisaloun, and Jisr Al-Haj bridges, the latter of which was damaged in the quake. Some people also set up tents on sidewalks and in public parks. 

Some families told The Syria Report’s correspondent that they preferred to stay in tents because the shelters are overcrowded and the services they provide are unsatisfactory. They added that corruption and favouritism were rampant in distributing aid supplies. Some people said that the temporary housing in Masaken Hananou and the Rehabilitation and Training Building was discriminatory and required wasta (connections in Arabic) with state employees, city and governorate councils, the Baath Party or loyalist militias, which often involves the payment of bribes. 

The Impact of the Earthquakes on Lattakia

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Out of around 50 buildings that completely collapsed in Lattakia governorate, the massive earthquake on February 6 caused the collapse of around 16 buildings in Lattakia city and cracks in dozens of other buildings. Most of the fallen buildings had been constructed without licences in informal settlements and therefore did not meet earthquake safety standards. However, some had been built with licences in formally zoned areas, suggesting tampering with building materials and corruption during construction. 

 

Al-Ramal Al-Janoubi

In Al-Ramal Al-Janoubi informal neighbourhood south of Lattakia city, ten buildings collapsed, killing around 40 people. These had been multi-storey buildings of at least four storeys each, most of them entirely inhabited. Some of them were built 20 years ago, while others were built only five years ago. Cracks also appeared on at least 30 other buildings in Al-Ramal Al-Janoubi, some of which are at risk of collapse. Some buildings need an inspection by technical experts to determine whether they are safe. 

Al-Ramal Al-Janoubi is an unofficial Palestinian refugee camp located along the seafront in the southern part of Lattakia city. The camp was established in the 1950s via Decree No. 2316 on land expropriated for the General Authority for Palestine Arab Refugees (GAPAR), a body affiliated with what was called then the Ministry of Local Affairs and Labour, on real estate no. 1140. Before 2011, the camp was home to around 10,000 Palestinian refugees. Al-Ramal Al-Janoubi is informally constructed, with a high population density and cramped buildings. 

There is only one main street, known as the Sea Road. The 2.2-hectare neighbourhood suffers from service neglect and is considered one of the poorest areas of Lattakia. Another informal neighbourhood extends along its northern outskirts, known as Al-Ramal Al-Shamali. 

 

Project No. 10

In contrast with the informal Al-Ramal Al-Janoubi neighbourhood, two buildings also collapsed in the formal Project No. 10 area and its expansion zone. Project No. 10 is a zoned area within the expanded zoning plan for Lattakia city. The two collapsed buildings had been licensed, each consisting of five storeys. This project and its extension, located in the northeast of Lattakia city near the Eastern Corniche, are affiliated with Syria’s cooperative housing sector. Dozens of housing cooperative societies have built projects for their members in the area since the 1980s.

An additional, unlicensed building facing the entrance to Project No. 10 also collapsed, killing an entire family of seven. 

One of the Lattakia governorate’s Engineering Committees, which was formed after the earthquake and is tasked with inspecting buildings for structural safety, has evacuated ten buildings in Project No. 10 in the past several days due to cracks and other safety issues. Four of the cracked buildings are around 30 years old, while others are newer, built less than a decade ago. 

Residents told The Syria Report’s local correspondent that the implementing agencies did not adhere to engineering plans when implementing the construction project. The plans required earthquake-resistant shear walls to be built on all storeys but were eventually scrapped for upper storeys, mainly due to corruption and tampering with the quantities of construction materials available. 

 

Damserkho

Finally, three buildings fell in the Damserkho area at the northern entrance to Lattakia, killing around 20 people. One of the buildings was inside Damserkho, while the other two were on the outskirts of the neighbourhood. Cracks also appeared in at least ten buildings in the area.  

Though it is located within the expanded zoning plans for Lattakia, Damserkho contains informal settlements. Despite multiple attempts by the governorate to crack down, unlicensed construction is rampant in the area, due largely to building owners with strong ties to the security services and army bullying official institutions. 

All the earthquake-affected buildings in Damserkho were unlicensed or, if they were licensed, went against the terms of their building permits. For example, one collapsed building had been a residential block that included a large furniture store and had been licensed as a three-storey building. However, the building owner decided to add three more storeys without the proper permit. 

Jandares in Rural Afrin: The Most Severe Earthquake Damage in Opposition Territory

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Jandares, located in the rural Afrin area in the northwestern Aleppo governorate countryside and controlled by the opposition-run Syrian Interim Government (SIG), was almost destroyed in the February 06 earthquake, which rendered the town an uninhabitable disaster zone. The sheer number of people who died beneath hundreds of partially and fully destroyed homes indicates serious construction issues and a lack of even minimal earthquake safety standards. 

Around 800 people were killed in the town, with operations still underway to search for and remove bodies trapped beneath the rubble. Statistics released by the opposition-run Jandares Local Council indicate that 257 buildings fully collapsed, while 1,100 others have partially collapsed or now feature cracks. After operations to search for remaining survivors ended a few days after the earthquake, committees from the Civil Defense and Free Engineers Syndicate, which are active in opposition-held areas, began to study the conditions of all remaining buildings in the town. They identified which buildings were at risk of collapse and which would pose a critical danger to residents returning home. 

Temporary shelters were also set up for survivors from Jandares, within the town and the city of Afrin. However, most survivors sought refuge in the camps along the Syrian-Turkish border.

According to Syria’s 2004 census, about 14,000 people lived in Jandares, most of whom, like residents of Afrin, were Kurdish. In 2012, the majority-Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) took over Jandares and most of the Afrin area. Later, in 2018, Turkish-backed National Army rebel factions took over the town in Operation Olive Branch, displacing many of the original Kurdish residents. Meanwhile, many IDPs were forcibly displaced to Jandares from other parts of Syria that had formerly been under opposition control, especially from rural Damascus, Homs, and Hama. By 2022, the town’s population reached 115,000 people, according to local council estimates. 

Most buildings in Jandares were unlicensed. Historically, the town is remote and has received little government or municipal attention. Jandares’ zoning plans are old and not adhered to by any local municipality, just as structural safety standards for construction were not followed during any period of control over the town, given its remote location.

Jandares could be divided into three main parts, according to a local correspondent for The Syria Report: the part built before 2011, the part built during YPG control in 2012-2018 and, finally, the part built during the current period of opposition control. Meanwhile, the first and second parts consist of mostly informal housing surrounding the old town centre. The third part is the largest and the most damaged by the earthquake. 

The informal settlements built in Jandares after 2012 were primarily constructed on private agricultural lands owned by the area’s original residents. After 2018, people newly displaced to the area bought some of those lands and built near-identical, unlicensed, multi-storey housing. Some other displaced people also seized some of the lands owned by those absent from the area and built on them similarly. In both cases, construction is done with the help of building contractors known locally as “building experts” or “concrete carpenters”. Such workers are people with construction experience but lack formal educational qualifications.  

Though the earthquake’s destruction centred on informal homes built after 2018, the damage hit all parts of Jandares. A structural engineer in the area told The Syria Report that, during the various periods of control over the town, no local municipality or independent engineering committee conducted soil tests or studied soil mechanics. Such studies help evaluate and analyse the physical and engineering characteristics of the soil in the given area and its ability to bear the weight of buildings. These studies could also determine the appropriate type of building foundation to avoid the risks of collapse while considering certain factors for earthquake protection. 

The engineer added that most of the building foundations in the town did not reach the rocky layer beneath the soil and that appropriate engineering methods were not followed. Multi-storey buildings, especially during the opposition control, did not take into account the additional load on the soil and did not feature appropriate foundations. Finally, the engineer added that, during no period of control of Jandares, no local authorities enforced mandatory construction permits that would take into account The Syrian Arab Code for the Design and Implementation of Reinforced Concrete Structures, which implement earthquake-resistant concrete reinforcements. Such reinforcements would have protected many buildings from collapse and limited the loss of life and property. 

The Free Engineers Syndicate branch in Aleppo governorate has tried since 2021 to impose a technical entity that would monitor licensing and construction in SIG-controlled areas. However, their attempt was unsuccessful amid an uncontrolled scramble to build homes amid pressure and high demand for housing in the area. 

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