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SSG Recovers Public Properties in Idlib

08-11-2023/in HLP, News /by Rand Shamaa

The Syrian Salvation Government (SSG), affiliated with the hardline Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), is working to recover public properties (agricultural lands or buildings) that were taken over by individuals within its areas of control in northwest Syria.

One of the most significant infringements in opposition-held areas is the construction of unlicensed dwellings on public lands. There are two main reasons for these violations: the population growth in the opposition-controlled areas of northwest Syria due to the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of Syrians from regime areas and the administrative and organisational chaos that accompanied the initial stages of the establishment of opposition authorities. This is coupled with a lack of planning and urban zoning based on population studies and housing needs.

In addition, other problems are related to de facto powers with influence in some of these unlicensed construction areas, making dealing with some informal settlements a political and security issue. Numerous encroachments on public properties are carried out by influential people and those close to HTS, as well as other Salafist groups associated with it, such as Ansar Al-Tawhid and the Turkistan Islamic Party.

According to the SSG’s Directorate of State Properties, since 2012, 3,852 occupants of public properties in Idlib have been compelled to pay rent, while in 153 cases, the illegal occupiers were removed. Adnan Al-Qasim, the director of State Properties, told The Syria Report correspondent in the area that between 2012 and 2020, some state properties were sold illegally by individuals claiming ownership, or usufruct contracts between public officials and individuals were signed.

In June 2020, the General Consultative Council in Idlib, which acts as the legislative authority, issued State Property Law No. 35, which includes 24 articles, most of which concern private state properties. The law is inspired by the State Property Law No. 252 of 1959, which was issued during the union between Egypt and Syria from 1958 to 1961. There is no available version of Law No. 35 on the official channels of the SSG. It appears that this absence is due to an attack the government faced by Salafists who rejected the law, demanding the application of Islamic Sharia only.

Law No. 35 obliges those infringing on such properties to rectify the violation or pay a fine twice the equivalent rent, to remove their possession, and to dismantle the unlicensed construction. The SSG considers that Syrian state properties have automatically become public properties under its control.

Regarding encroachments on public properties, the SSG applied the building violation law in force before 2011 to address violations occurring before the 2011 uprising.

Meanwhile, a specialised committee reviews unlicensed construction on public properties between 2012 and 2020, addressing them according to Sharia and legal principles and the public interest while considering the State Property Law and the Forestry Law. Those who have acquired a real right on these properties must register it. If anyone violates the conditions of ownership, their rights can be revoked. Moreover, according to Law No. 35, rights of easement, use, and usufruct on state properties can be revoked by a decision from the Minister of Agriculture.

In most cases, the violation is temporarily settled by categorising it as a rental, and the rent is collected from the occupant of the property, whether it is land or a dwelling. In this case, the occupant is not given any legal status as an owner, investor, or administrator of the property. They may be requested to vacate when necessary and hand over the property to the public or municipal authorities.

Many properties unlawfully occupied in this way have been recovered and allocated to the Ministry of Development to establish camps for displaced and evacuated persons. Mr Qasim said that requiring the occupant of the property to pay rent is a form of recovering the property. An official report of the incident is drawn up, including details of the violation, which the occupant signs, acknowledging that it concerns public property.

Unlicensed construction occurring after the enforcement of Law No. 35 will immediately be removed, and the possession of the occupant, who is considered an illegal occupier of the property, is revoked; they may be punished with imprisonment and a fine. If the provisions of this law conflict with another law, the provisions of the stricter law shall apply unless they contradict the provisions of Islamic Sharia, according to sources from the SSG.

SSG Demolishes Idlib Residential Buildings for Road Expansion

11-10-2023/in HLP, News /by Rand Shamaa

The Ministry of Local Administration and Services in the Syrian Salvation Government (SSG) began a campaign in September to demolish properties and homes to widen the road connecting the city of Al-Dana to the town of Deir Hassan, in northern Idlib countryside. The demolition operations included both licensed and unlicensed buildings. The road expansion aims to alleviate the severe traffic congestion in the area, which is home to many camps for Syrian IDPs.

Those opposed to the road expansion say it has had negative impacts on shops and building owners, who have not received compensation. They believe it benefits some traders who purchased properties on either side of the road, anticipating their value to rise after the expansion. The road expansion is expected to attract investors interested in establishing shopping centres, restaurants and parks on both sides of the road, similar to the situation on the Bab Al-Hawa-Idlib highway.

Many buildings were constructed on both sides of the road after 2011, during the period when the area fell out of the regime’s control, and before the establishment of the opposition-run local councils in northern Idlib. Later, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly Al-Nusra Front) would take control of the area in 2014.

One local homeowner told The Syria Report that he built his home in late 2011 on land he owns. However, he expanded his construction onto land earmarked for road expansion in the old zoning plan for the area. Last June, like other property owners, he received a notice from the Ministry of Local Administration and Services to vacate and demolish the parts of the building that were unlicensed. Then, in September, the ministry forced the owners of unlicensed buildings to demolish them themselves and remove the rubble at their own expense. Those owners received no compensation for their demolished properties. They also received no financial or logistical assistance in demolishing them, as they were built on public property without a licence, as the local homeowner said.

Notably, the ministry did not issue a decision to expropriate the targeted lands for road expansion and has no clear legal methodology for compensating the owners.

Saeed Al-Ashqar, an advisor to the SSG’s Minister of Local Administration and Services, told The Syria Report that the demolished buildings were mostly unlicensed and built within the road expansion zone. He refuted claims made by some owners of demolished unlicensed buildings that they received no compensation. He said that only three unlicensed buildings were completely demolished, and their owners were compensated, without specifying the amount or method. The owners of nine other partly-demolished unlicensed buildings were compensated.

Licensed buildings were demolished in agreement with their owners, and they received compensation from the SSG, according to Mr Al-Ashqar, who did not specify the compensation amount. Licensed buildings that were demolished date back to a time before the old zoning plan, which included road expansion. In contrast, licensed buildings set back from the road by a minimum distance and with a front setback were not demolished.

Mr Al-Ashqar further argued that the road serves over a quarter of a million people. The road’s expansion and rehabilitation are initiatives by the Ministry of Local Administration to stimulate trade and the economy in the area and address the traffic congestion. A new zoning plan for Al-Dana city was introduced at the beginning of 2022, including road expansion. Al-Ashqar said that the expansion will increase the road’s width to 24 metres over a distance of 1,750 metres, and the area will be serviced with the necessary infrastructure, including electricity, water, and sewage networks.

Government Housing Projects for Eligible Earthquake Victims

20-06-2023/in HLP, News /by Rand Shamaa

Four months after the February 6 earthquake, governmental housing projects for those whose homes were damaged or lost in the disaster are still in the initial stages of debris removal, for the homes destroyed, and foundation digging.

Chaos, confusion and lack of clarity pervade the official statements and data regarding these projects, although one can already conclude that government housing projects for victims of the earthquake are part of the third longer-term stage of the government’s national action plan, which was announced by the Council of Ministers on February 15 and approved two months later. This third stage stipulates that homes should be rebuilt and the urban landscape improved relative to the situation before the earthquake and war, through the rezoning and rebuilding of informal settlements.

There is also a variance in the nomenclature that Syrian officials use for these planned projects in the governorates of Aleppo and Lattakia; some of them call it alternative housing, for example. In this article, we will adopt the name government housing projects for eligible earthquake victims, to distinguish them from prefabricated temporary housing projects, which are funded by regional and international donors.

In all cases, there are doubts over the possibility of completing the government housing projects within the officially set one-year deadline. The modest number of expected completed homes may not meet the housing needs of the large numbers of affected people. Additionally, the criteria adopted to determine who are the beneficiaries of these homes after their completion remain unclear.

Aleppo city

The earthquake caused the total collapse of 53 buildings in the city of Aleppo, with cracks appearing and partial collapses occurring in hundreds of other buildings. On February 19, the governor of Aleppo stated that 220 buildings at risk of collapse had been demolished.

On June 10, Prime Minister Hussein Arnous inspected two housing project sites for the quake victims in Aleppo; one in Al-Haidariya neighbourhood and the other in Al-Maasaraniya suburb for youth housing, east of the city. Arnous said during his visit that the two housing projects “contribute to solving the problem of unlicensed construction.” It is unclear what exactly he meant, but the two areas where these housing projects are being implemented include large informal settlements built on public property, some of which were damaged by the earthquake.

According to state media, four buildings will be constructed in Al-Haidariya, each consisting of 10 storeys with eight apartments each, making 320 apartments in total. The total area of these apartments will be 25,600 square metres, at a total cost estimated at SYP 66.6 billion. Jamal Karim, the head of the studies department at Aleppo city council, said on June 4 that the body studying the project is the Professional Practice Unit at Aleppo University, and that the General Housing Establishment under the Ministry of Public Works and Housing will implement it. Four months after the earthquake, work on this project is still in its early stages, which includes land levelling and digging foundations.

The land on which the project in Al-Haidariya is being built is owned by the Aleppo city council. On March 15, the head of Aleppo city council, Muadd Al-Madlaji, said that the area of land allocated in Al-Haidariya for housing the earthquake victims is 78 hectares large and can accommodate 10,000 residential apartments. It should be noted that Al-Haidariya is a large informal area where the Aleppo city council had previously created a 118-hectare real estate development zone in October 2010, which is also public property. So far, it is unclear what the boundaries of the new housing project for earthquake victims in Al-Haidariya are, and whether it extends to some of the land allocated for the real estate development area.

Meanwhile, the housing project in Al-Maasaraniya suburb east of Aleppo consists of four buildings containing 120 apartments, with each apartment ranging in size between 65 and 90 square metres, and a total floor area of 10,000 square metres, at a total estimated cost of SYP 18.6 billion. According to official announcements, the project is about 28 percent complete and is being carried out by the Military Construction Implementation Corporation (MCIC) of the Ministry of Defense—or Mataa in Arabic. The land on which the housing project in Al-Maasaraniya is being built is owned by the General Housing Establishment.

Al-Maasaraniya neighbourhood is located on the Aleppo-Raqqa highway, near Aleppo International Airport, and includes informal settlements built on public property. In 2002, the General Housing Establishment launched a youth housing project in Al-Maasaraniya. By 2010, only the first phase of the project had been completed, and part of it was handed over to applicants. From 2012 onwards, Al-Maasaraniya, including its youth housing, became a dangerous area due to its proximity to the airport, and until 2016 it was subjected to aerial bombardment by the regime, pushing most of its residents to flee and causing widespread destruction.

Both the projects in Al-Haidariya and Al-Maasaraniya have a one-year implementation deadline, Deputy Governor of Aleppo, Komeit Assi Al-Sheikh, told the state-run Tishreen newspaper on June 6.

The Minister of Public Works and Housing, Suhail AbdulLatif, inspected work at the housing project sites in Al-Haidariya and Al-Maasaraniya on June 3, pointing to the government’s interest in the buildings for eligible people as part of the measures included in the national earthquake response plan. AbdulLatif said that work is being done in a systematic engineering and administrative manner, urging adherence to execution quality and compliance with the set schedule. AbdulLatif chaired a meeting at the governorate building, in which he was briefed on a detailed presentation about the structural work, cladding and implementation phases in the two projects.

Lattakia governorate

In the Lattakia governorate, 50 buildings completely collapsed and dozens partially collapsed due to the earthquake. In mid-May, the governor of Lattakia said there were 1,200 damaged buildings on the verge of collapse needing to be demolished, according to reports from public safety committees.

Similar to Aleppo, housing projects will be established in Lattakia for earthquake victims on lands owned by the General Housing Establishment, as well as lands owned by the Lattakia City Council. The governor of Lattakia, Amer Hilal, confirmed in mid-May that construction had begun on four residential towers in the city’s Al-Thawra Street neighbourhood, and two towers in Al-Gharraf neighbourhood. He added that preparations had also begun to construct two towers in the city of Jableh. The Minister of Public Works and Housing and the governor of Lattakia, inspected on May 13, the status of the works in some of these projects.

Each tower consists of 10 storeys of apartments, each ranging from 80 to 100 square metres. The actual number of apartments in these projects is unclear amid conflicting figures released by official sources; some numbers indicated the construction of 160 apartments on General Housing Establishment-owned land, and 160 apartments on lands owned by the Lattakia City Council. Other sources pointed to 320 apartments on GHE lands, and 80 apartments on city council lands under the management of the GHE and implemented by public construction companies.

In any case, work is currently still in its preliminary stages in all these projects. The Minister of Housing indicated that work is still focused on testing soil resistance at the site intended for the construction of two towers in Jableh, while the General Company for Engineering Studies is preparing engineering studies for the project. After their completion, the excavation work will commence.

On March 15, the head of the Lattakia Governorate Council told the semi-official Al-Watan newspaper that work was underway to provide housing to those who lost their homes in the quake. He added that preparations were underway to build a clear and precise database to identify and count all the victims whose homes were destroyed or cracked beyond repair. The official pointed out that administrative units will work on preparing the site for construction, and the governorate is preparing the infrastructure for sewerage networks, water and all other public services.

Turkey Launches New Housing Project in Rural Aleppo for Returnees

06-06-2023/in HLP, News /by Rand Shamaa

On May 24, Turkey’s Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu laid the foundation stone for a residential village project near the town of Ghandoura in the countryside outside Jarablus in the rural northeastern part of Aleppo governorate, which is under the control of the Ankara-backed Syrian Interim Government (SIG). The project comes amid a broader process by Turkey to repatriate Syrian refugees to opposition-held areas of northern Syria.

“Syrian refugees living in Turkey will settle in [these] homes within the framework of voluntary returns, which preserves their dignity,” Soylu said during a short speech in front of an audience of displaced Syrians, police officers and Syrian opposition factions affiliated with the National Army.

Meanwhile, written on a large billboard at the launching site in both Arabic and Turkish was: “The Safe and Dignified Return Project,” alongside slogans from the Turkish Disaster and Emergency Management Authority, AFAD (an organisation that operates under the supervision of the Turkish Ministry of Interior), the Qatar Fund for Development and the Turkish Dignified Living Association, according to AFP.

Both the Turkish Minister of Interior and the Director of the Qatar Fund for Development, Khalifa Al-Kawari, laid the foundation stone for the project, the state-run Qatar News Agency reported. The project aims to provide housing for 50,000 people and includes 5,000 apartments alongside public facilities, a mosque, a commercial centre, three schools and a medical centre. There will also be roads, public parks, an electricity network and water tanks available for the returning refugees.

Soylu said during the launch ceremony that 240,000 homes would be built in the area and that he hoped to complete the project within three years. Previously, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced in May 2022 that his government was working to build between 200,000 and 250,000 housing units in 13 different areas inside Syria, with funding from various international organisations. This was part of a push to repatriate more than one million Syrian refugees from Turkey, where around 3.7 Syrian refugees currently live under international protection.

The Syria Report’s sources in the area clarified that the Ghandoura project is meant to include only 12,000 apartments, which will be constructed over three phases. The first phase aims to build 5,000 apartments by the end of 2023. This phase already began after Soylu’s visit to the area and also includes construction work to prepare the foundations, infrastructure and surface coverings for the site.

A local official in Ghandoura’s council told The Syria Report that the project is being built on a 58-hectare plot of publicly owned property, which before 2012 was used as an agricultural airport. The official added that the airport had covered 110 hectares, some of which was seized by opposition faction leaders since they took control of the area in 2012. Since then these leaders have been investing in agricultural activity on the land.

The land has changed hands over time as various different factions seized control of the area, with the entire town falling under Islamic State control in 2014-2017. After Turkish-backed National Army forces expelled IS, opposition faction leaders continued squabbling amongst themselves over the land. With Turkish support, the local council in Ghandour was able to recover 58 hectares of the land, which it allocated for the construction of the residential project. The local official in Ghandoura’s council added that the project could later be expanded to cover the entirety of the old agricultural airport, once work on the existing three phases is completed.

A Jarablus Local Council official, told The Syria Report, that the surface area and other specifications for the project’s apartments have yet to be determined. Local authorities were working to put new engineering plans in place for the communities, as well as to set the conditions and specifications for construction and cladding materials. The official added that AFAD would directly supervise implementation of the project.

The apartments will be distributed to people by local councils in the area, a new measure Turkey has imposed after the February 6 earthquake. Under this new rule, NGOs and aid organisations that build residential communities will not be able to distribute the dwellings themselves, but rather via existing local council regulations. The Ghandoura Local Council official said that the homes in the Ghandoura project will be distributed as soon as they are ready, via the local council. The project is entirely allocated for Syrian refugees wishing to return from Turkey, he added, as the project will not benefit internally displaced people.

Government Evicts Tenants of Al-Thawra Consumer Complex Building

20-12-2022/in HLP, News /by Rand Shamaa

The Ministry of Internal Trade and Consumer Protection recently retook the Al-Thawra Consumer Complex building in downtown Damascus from the Damascus Consumers Cooperative Society. As a result, many shopping halls were closed despite objections from the tenants.

The Al-Thawra Complex and the Consumers Cooperative Society

The Al-Thawra Consumer Complex building is a mall located along Al-Thawra Street, one of downtown Damascus’s busiest streets. It is one of the city’s largest commercial complexes, standing ten-storey tall with more than 3,000 square metres. It also includes a three-storey, 45-room hotel and a rooftop restaurant. It opened in 1985.

The complex and some buildings near it were built on land in the Sarouja neighbourhood. One of the reasons for constructing it was to replace the old Al-Khuja Souk, which was demolished during a project to dig up the western side of the historic wall around the Citadel of Damascus.

The complex was allocated to the Ministry of Supply (now called the Ministry of Internal Trade and Consumer Protection). However, the government gave the Damascus Consumers Cooperative Society the right to invest in it. However, with time, the Society converted much of the shopping complex into carpet showrooms and turned many sales shops into warehouses, leasing them out to other parties.

The Society was established in 1956 under Cooperatives Law No. 317 of that same year. The organisation aimed to import consumer goods to sell at cost to members and, at reduced market prices, to everyday consumers. Law No. 317 was later amended by Private Societies and Associations Law No. 93 of 1958. The then-Ministry of Supply also issued a set of decrees, instructions and circulars to regulate the work of such entities, as well as Decree No. 743 of 1995, which included a unified internal system for consumer cooperative societies.

In theory, cooperative societies are meant to operate as independent civil entities. However, a series of government decrees effectively limited their independence and placed them under the supervision of the Ministry of Supply’s Consumer Cooperatives Directorate.

Latest Ministry of Internal Trade procedures

Minister of Internal Trade Amro Salem issued Decision No. 3073 on October 24, 2022, dissolving the board of directors for Damascus Consumers Cooperative Society based on a decision by the Central Commission for Monitoring and Inspection. Just two months before, on August 17, the Ministry of Finance issued Decision No. 17, which placed precautionary seizures on the assets of three Damascus Consumers Cooperative Society board members as a guarantee for payment of SYP 107 million. The origin of this sum remains unclear.

The Ministry of Internal Trade also decided to form an interim board of directors for the Damascus Consumers Cooperative Society. This new board was tasked with regulating the Society’s financial, administrative, and legal work system and setting up an election session within a three-month deadline. The board would also run a physical inventory of the Al-Thawra complex’s warehouses. At the time, the minister accused the Society of stealing goods from the complex and “converting it into a home for rats, in very poor condition.”

However, the existing board of directors rejected those decisions. It refused to cede administrative control to the interim board because theirs was an elected board that the ministry had no right to dissolve. Acting on orders from the ministry, police – including judicial police – broke down the doors of the Al-Thawra complex, raided it, and sealed it with red wax.

Indeed, Decision No. 3073 contradicts the various laws regulating cooperative societies, under which the power to dissolve a society’s board of directors lies with that society’s general assembly or the judiciary. The Minister of Internal Trade had indicated that there was a court ruling to dissolve the board of directors for the Damascus Consumers Cooperative Society and that investigations were ongoing into some violations. The Syria Report was not able to confirm that such a ruling exists.

The tenants

According to statements by the Minister of Internal Trade at a press conference on November 14, 2022, the Consumers Cooperative Society had acted as an investor, granting other parties advantages in investing and working in the Al-Thawra complex. It leased out many of the shopping halls, according to contracts to supply items in trust; that is, sourcing goods and placing them under the Society’s trust to sell them in exchange for the Society benefiting from a cut of the profits. These profits are estimated and paid in advance.

During the November press conference, representatives of the closed sales halls tenants said they had signed five-year, official supply and trust contracts with the Consumers Cooperative Society, which they had recently renewed. The business owners had remodelled their storefronts and brought in new goods, “carpets”, totalling hundreds of millions of Syrian pounds based on those renewed contracts.

The minister responded that those contracts were not with the Ministry of Internal Trade and were not investment contracts but supply contracts for the Society to secure goods. He added that the contract holders had acted as investors renting out sales halls and converting them to direct sales, which is illegal. He explained that the Society is not an investor and the contract holders are not tenants, so they are not entitled to invest in the sales halls.

The head of the interim board of directors told the state-run Tishreen newspaper that all the carpet sales hall investors’ contracts are, in fact, trust contracts rather than investment or lease contracts. However, the contract holders engaged purely in investment work, which contradicted the terms of their contracts with the consumer cooperative. He added that the trust contracts were not made via public auction, suggesting signs of corruption in granting them.

State-run newspapers reported that the minister vowed to remove the red wax seals from the Al-Thawra complex and offered investors the option to sign temporary contracts with the Ministry of Internal Trade for several months. This would allow them to sell their goods in the complex until they could find another location to conduct business. He also indicated that the Council of Ministers would offer the Al-Thawra complex for investment via the Investment Commission and that a new draft law on consumer cooperative societies was under study.