restoration – Syria Report

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Mysterious Report Announces 50 Homes to be Restored in Darayya

19-09-2023/in HLP, News /by Rand Shamaa

Syria’s state-run SANA news agency reported on June 9 that the local council of Darayya, located in the Rural Damascus governorate, has received an approval to restore 50 houses in the city with the support of unnamed international organisations working in Syria. SANA added that these organisations are currently selecting another 60 homes for rehabilitation.

Because of its proximity to Damascus and the Mezzeh military airport, Darayya suffered a severe siege imposed by regime forces between 2012 and 2016. This resulted in the forced displacement of all its residents after entire neighbourhoods were levelled by regime airstrikes. In August 2018, the Rural Damascus governorate announced that the city’s displaced residents could return, provided they submit documents proving property ownership within the city and obtain prior security approval. In mid-2019, some families returned.

Mundhir Al-Azab, the head of Darayya city council, told SANA that the owners of the 50 selected homes were among the lowest-income residents of the city. These houses were inhabited before they were damaged by people Al-Azab described as “terrorists.” They are structurally sound, licensed, and fall within the city’s zoning plan. He added that the same organisations have also chosen 20 commercial shops for rehabilitation.

Al-Azab mentioned that 23,000 homes and 4,000 shops had been rehabilitated by their owners in the city, while efforts are underway to rehabilitate more by the civil community. A correspondent for The Syria Report expressed doubts about this figure, adding that rehabilitating 23,000 homes in the city would theoretically mean the return of approximately 100,000 displaced residents, while sources in the city indicate a population of around 25,000 at most, with some not being fully settled due to poor services.

The city undergoes strict power rationing, with electricity being supplied for just one hour daily. This, in turn, hampers the water supply to the inhabited homes’ tanks, forcing residents to purchase drinking and washing water at their own expense. The streets of Darayya are still filled with rubble and garbage. Many of the city’s buildings are at risk of collapse and pose a public danger. For the most part, those who returned to the city are simply displaced people who have lost ties elsewhere and have not found another place to live.

Notably absent in SANA’s report and Al-Azab’s statements is the specific location of these homes, their owners and the international organisations funding the project. The city council has yet to share the SANA article on its public facebook page. Our correspondent could not determine the locations of these homes, their owners, or whether any closed-door tendering occurred for the renovation projects. The correspondent highlighted the city council’s failure to post any news about the renovations in its headquarters or on its internal announcement board. Via indirect communication, a local council member denied to The Syria Report any knowledge of the project and expressed doubts about its existence altogether.

An informed source from the city told The Syria Report that the news might not be entirely accurate, and the work might not be a full renovation but merely a simple rehabilitation. The source added that the international organisations funding such projects are the ones setting criteria for selecting homes. Often, these organisations stipulate that the house must be inhabited by its owner and the properties have to be undamaged and habitable.

In any case, according to the local source, the process will not go beyond simple rehabilitation work, such as minor repairs, installing doors and windows, and distributing some household items. The source added that the city council frequently makes contracts for rehabilitating homes and government buildings with international NGOs, either through the Syrian Red Crescent or smaller local NGOs, making it hard to ascertain the primary funding source.

The Syria Report’s correspondent added, based on local sources, that the Darayya city council cannot undertake renovation or rehabilitation projects alone as its current budget does not allow for it. Even the government and official buildings, such as the Land Registry and municipal and financial offices were only minimally rehabilitated after the council launched campaigns to collect donations from the community. These buildings were equipped only with the bare minimum of furniture and equipment.

Jandares Two Months on from the Earthquake

11-04-2023/in HLP, News /by Rand Shamaa

Over two months after the February 06 earthquake, the town of Jandares still suffers the impacts of the damage. The town is located in the Afrin region of the Aleppo governorate which is under the control of the Syrian Interim Government (SIG).

The quake virtually destroyed Jandares. It killed around 800 residents, destroyed 278 buildings, and damaged 1,100 buildings. The owners of these destroyed and damaged homes still live across four main shelter centres near the town and in small camps inside Jandares.

Most original residents of Jandares are Kurds, and in 2012 the majority-Kurdish People’s Protection Units took control of the town. Then in 2018, Turkish-backed opposition factions seized Jandares in Operation Olive Branch, displacing many original residents. Meanwhile, many people forcibly displaced by regime forces from other parts of Syria formerly controlled by the opposition, namely Rural Damascus, Homs, and Hama, arrived and settled in Jandares. According to local council estimates, the town’s population in 2022 was around 115,000 people.

Immediately after the earthquake, the Aleppo branch of the Free Syrian Engineers’ Syndicate formed comprehensive survey committees (Earthquake Damage Assessment Committees) to conduct field surveys on the 1,100 affected buildings in Jandares. In mid-March, these committees completed their work. They classified the buildings into three categories according to their level of damage: slight, moderate and severe. There were 45 severely damaged buildings.

Afterwards, Jandares Local Council requested a central public safety committee, consisting of nine syndicate engineers, to inspect the severely damaged buildings and issue a final recommendation for either their removal or reinforcement. The committee decided to completely demolish most of these 45 buildings or demolish parts of them and reinforce the remaining sections.

It should be noted that the Engineers’ Syndicate signed a memorandum of understanding on February 19, 2023, with the non-governmental organisation Mercy Without Limits, which was founded in 2012 and licensed in Turkey. According to the memorandum, the organisation provides equipment, pays for building inspections, covers transportation costs and compensates the engineers.

The survey committees and the Central Safety Committee handed their results to the local council, which is now responsible for implementation. The local council has tasked its demolition and removal committee with issuing a final decision regarding the damaged buildings. Then, on April 06, the local council published a list of ten damaged buildings to destroy and gave their owners a three-day deadline to object. It is not yet clear what the legal mechanisms are in case any of the building owners object. Still, at the time of writing, the council has yet to receive any objections. Therefore, after the three-day deadline ends, the demolition and removal committee will knock down those buildings and remove their rubble.

In the next stage, the Central Safety Committee will identify moderately damaged buildings requiring reinforcement. It may then decide to reinforce or demolish some buildings, as some moderate-risk buildings have suffered further damage with the earthquake aftershocks.

Samir Bouidani, head of the Central Safety Committee in the Aleppo branch of the Free Syrian Engineers’ Syndicate, explained to The Syria Report some of the engineering standards used to determine the safety of local buildings. For example, the committee removed any building that showed a visible slant, even with no cracks. And any decision to reinforce a building depends on the cost not exceeding 50 percent of the cost of its concrete structure. Here, costs are the deciding factor.

According to Mr Bouidani, determining which reinforcement method to use is not the Central Safety Committee’s job, as each building requires its own specialised engineering study. Therefore, the Engineers’ Syndicate, in coordination with the local council and with the consent of the building owners, refer the matter to private engineering offices licensed. It is still unclear whether any governmental or non-governmental organisations will contribute or fund such reinforcement and restoration for buildings that require this work before being inhabited again.

On the other hand, individual restoration projects on slightly damaged houses have taken place in the town, albeit out of the owners’ pockets. Such work includes rebuilding walls using blocks and cement, plastering, repairing windows, doors, and external walls and repairing inner courtyards. This restoration work often does not include any metal or reinforced concrete for columns and beams. These projects pose risks, including masking the harmful effects of the earthquake on the building’s structural mass, which could mean dangers to these buildings in the future.

As for removing the debris, work is still unorganised as there is no legal mechanism to protect the rights of homeowners’ rubble. NGOs are still working to remove debris from Jandares in cooperation with the local council and the Syrian Civil Defence, also known as the White Helmets. On April 04, the Syrian NGO Takaful Al-Sham, registered in Turkey since 2013, launched the Balsam Project to remove debris and rehabilitate several markets and roads within Jandares, according to the “cash for work” principle. However, like other projects launched by non-governmental organisations, Balsam did not clarify that the debris is the last evidence of the owners’ ownership of their collapsed homes or the fate of the original properties and possessions upon which they were built.

Syrian Engineers’ Syndicate and the February 6 Earthquake

28-03-2023/in HLP, News /by Rand Shamaa

On February 27, 2023, the Syrian Engineers’ Syndicate Central Council issued Decision No. 4, which reduces the fees levied by engineers to assess the condition of damaged buildings in the governorates most impacted by the February 6 earthquake: Lattakia, Aleppo, Hama and Idlib. That same day, the head of the syndicate approved the decision through his own Decision No. 27, which in turn was approved by the Ministry of Public Works and Housing Decision No. 1698.

Engineers’ Syndicate Decision No. 4 of 2023

Decision No. 4 intends to provide a unified system for collecting various engineering fees and aims to bring an end to the pricing chaos that accompanied the February 6 quake. Previously, local branches of the syndicate issued separate decisions to determine these fees in earthquake-damaged areas, without referring to the Central Council.

Decision No.4 consists of six paragraphs, the first four of which address lowering the fees usually charged by engineers for inspecting buildings, conducting engineering studies or supervising restoration works. Paragraph five lays out the financial contributions of the syndicate to engineers’ fees. Finally, paragraph six reaffirms that Engineers’ Syndicate Decision No. 43 of 2022 is the reference text for determining engineering fees, which are referred to in last month’s Decision No. 4 as “applicable fees”.

Depending on whether the studies and reports are requested by building owners or by the local administrative units the discount offered on engineering fees is either partial or full. For example, if a local administrative unit requests a technical evaluation report for a building, the engineers are required to prepare it for free. When building owners make a request for inspecting and carrying out a study of the condition of their building, engineers will also not charge fees on licensed buildings or facilities that suffered earthquake damage. However, they are entitled to charge up to 50 percent of their usual fees to supervise restoration works.

Engineers’ Syndicate Decision No. 43 of 2022

Usually, the syndicate issues an annual list of fees for engineering work. The current list of applicable fees was published in the syndicate’s 114-page Decision No. 43 of 2022. Consisting of 14 chapters, the decision lists the minimum fees for civil, architectural, electrical, mechanical, chemical, geological, environmental, software and medical engineering work. It also includes the fees for studies and supervision of various types of facilities, as well as for executive and economic feasibility studies, engineering supervision and more.

Decision No. 43 sets the engineering fees for new construction projects as follows: engineering study fees are 1.5 percent of the cost of construction. This study must in turn be inspected by a consultant engineer whose fee is one-third that of the engineering study — i.e., 0.5 percent of the approved construction cost. The fee for the engineer supervising the implementation of a residential construction project is 2.5 percent of the construction cost. In short, the total fees for study, inspection and supervision come out to 4.5 percent of the construction cost.

Regarding reinforcement work, Decision No. 43 sets a flat fee of SYP 48,825 for reinforcement studies of each structural element (retaining walls, shear walls, foundations, etc.), provided the amount earned by the engineer to perform the study is no less than SYP 167,400 fee. The inspecting engineer and supervising engineer each receive a sum equal to one-third the studying engineer’s fee.

Key takeaways from Decision No. 4 of 2023

The decision only applies to governorates that were considered the worst impacted by the February 6 quake, despite some buildings in other governorates like Homs, Rural Damascus and Tartous suffering partial or total collapse in the disaster. This means that owners of damaged buildings in those governorates must pay the full fees incurred, such as those for licensing, studies, inspection and implementation, in addition to any reconstruction costs.

The syndicate also exempted owners of licensed, destroyed buildings in earthquake-affected governorates from paying some fees if they reconstruct their buildings according to previously approved plans. In other words, the syndicate is exempting them from paying the fees for already-completed engineering studies. Notably, however, this means those buildings are being reconstructed without taking into account the reasons they collapsed, putting them at risk of collapsing yet again if stricken by an earthquake of the same magnitude. The decision also states that the local administrative unit is the entity that may approve modifications to a building plan undergoing reconstruction, albeit without specifying reasons for those modifications.

The End of the Damascus Traditional Crafts Souk

10-01-2023/in HLP, News /by Rand Shamaa

In October 2022, the Ministry of Tourism warned occupants of traditional handicrafts workshops and stores in Al-Suleimaniyeh Hospice area in Damascus that they must vacate their businesses before the end of 2022 to allow for restoration work on the hospice. The ministry also cancelled investment contracts for store occupants in the local souk, a sign that the evictions are final.

The historic hospice

Al-Suleimaniyeh Hospice was founded in the 16th century during the reign of Ottoman Sultan Suleiman Al-Qanuni, with construction supervised by Mimar Sinan, a chief Ottoman architect. In the Ottoman Islamic tradition, a hospice was a resting place to provide food and shelter to pilgrims travelling to Mecca during Hajj, and to the poor during the rest of the year.

Al-Suleimaniyeh Hospice consists of two main architectural complexes: the first contains a mosque and the hospice grounds, and the second Al-Sulaymaniyah School and a surrounding souk. The school building held the Military Museum until 2011. The souk, meanwhile, has been home to the traditional handicrafts market since the 1970s, containing around 40 traditional Damascene craft shops, such as glass and seashell workers and makers of traditional Damascene textiles like the aghabani fabric. The market also hosts the Damascus Sheikhs of Alkar, the most prominent craftspeople of their trades, such as those involved in copper engraving, Damascene swords, oud instruments, damask cloth, ceramics, stained glass and traditional aqal headbands.

Restoration

There was a project in 2010 to restore the hospice with the help of the Turkish government, but it halted due to the onset of the revolution in 2011. The Syria Trust for Development, an NGO run by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s wife Asma al-Assad, presented a study in 2020 proposing a multi-stage process to restore the hospice. However, the trust did not reveal many details about the project, amid rumours about a for-profit investment scheme targeting business people and leaving out the traditional craftspeople of the hospice.

Structurally, the hospice has no cracks that threaten collapse. However, it does need partial restoration work that would not require evacuating the craft workers, the head of the Traditional Professions Division of the Union of Syrian Chambers of Tourism told the state-run Tishreen newspaper in March 2020. He is also among the craftspeople working in Al-Suleimaniyeh Hospice. In another recent statement from October 28, 2022, he suggested that the Ministry of Tourism temporarily move the traditional handicrafts souk to another location until the completion of restoration work. The ministry did not respond to his suggestion.

Investment contracts

The stores inside the traditional handicrafts market are endowment properties. Before 2000, those stores were leased under the supervision of various Ministry of Endowments directorates. Tenants pay gifts to these directorates alongside a merely symbolic annual rent. Though the leases have fixed terms, they are subject to implicit renewal. The provisions for lease contracts in Syria’s Civil Code apply to these properties, on the condition that they be registered by the Ministry of Endowments and its subdirectories.

However, in 2000, supervision of the souk was inexplicably transferred from the Ministry of Endowments to the Ministry of Tourism, which replaced the old lease contracts for the shops with investment contracts that were to be renewed annually.

Then in October 2022, the Ministry of Tourism terminated these investment contracts with the shop occupants and warned them to vacate the properties within two months. In official statements that same month, the tourism minister said that, according to the investment contracts, the ministry has the right to end the contracts in the traditional handicrafts market at any time and may retake the vacated shops within the given deadline.

Meanwhile, the deputy tourism minister stated that the investment contracts may not be automatically renewed if one of the parties does not notify the other of their desire to renew it within one month before the stated end of the contract period. He added that the Ministry of Tourism also may vacate the shops for purposes of the public interest before the end of the contract period without the shopkeepers having the right to claim damages. According to him, the shop investors must vacate the shops immediately, within the deadline given by the ministry. Those who refuse to vacate must bear the costs of vacating their stores through administrative means so long as all obligations they incur through these contracts are collected according to the principles of collection of public assets.

Souks in Homs to be Included in the Recent Tax Exemptions Decree

18-10-2022/in HLP, News /by Rand Shamaa

In August, Decree No. 13 of 2022 was issued, granting extensive tax concessions and exemptions within old city centres in the Aleppo, Homs, and Deir-ez-Zor governorates, including the historic souks. While waiting for the decree’s executive instructions to be published, however, government officials have given contradictory statements about the souks and districts in the city of Homs that the decree will cover.

Homs is home to a historic market known as Souk Al-Masqouf, or the Covered Souk in English. Several other souks branch out from this one, some dating back to the Mamlouk era. The most important of these souks are the Al-Nouri Souk, the Textile Souk, the Perfumers’ Souk, the Silk Souk, the Goldsmiths’ Souk, the Distillers’ Souk, the Cloakmakers’ Souk, the Tailors’ Souk, Al-Hisbeh Souk, Al-Bazerbashi Souk, and the Womens’ Souk. Many of these souks specialise in certain goods, as their names indicate. There are around 1,000 total shops in Homs’ historic souks and some palaces and homes surrounding them.

The historic Souk Al-Masqouf, as well as its connected souks, are all part of the city’s Central Souk, the commercial centre of the Old City of Homs. There are some old popular markets within the Central Souk, such as Souk Al-Naoureh and Souk Al-Hamidiyeh. It is unclear whether Decree No. 13 will cover the entire Central Souk, or just Souk Al-Masqouf and the historic souks that branch off it. Recent official statements contradict one another over how the Old City, the Central Souk, the historic souks, and other commercial souks are distinguished.

In late August, the governor of Homs announced that preparations were underway to start tallying the shops in need of restoration within the city’s historic souk area. He added that lists of taxes and fees for specific crafts and professions, as well as for income taxes, debts, and consumer spending, are also being prepared. Decree No. 13 is to grant exemptions for those payments.

The head of the Homs City Council has stated that the decree includes tax exemptions for destroyed shops and homes within the Old City that need restoration. The historic souk area, he added, contains 15 such souks, 390 of which have reopened. Some 600 shops have been restored, while 200 are ready to reopen and have yet to do so.

Souk Al-Masqouf

Between 2000 and 2005, Japan funded restoration works for Souk Al-Masqouf in cooperation with the Homs governorate and Directorate of Antiquities. The work included repairing cracks in the walls and depressions in floors, reinforcing some building foundations, cleaning, and installing lights.

But later, between 2012 and 2014, Souk Al-Masqouf became a frontline between regime and rebel forces in Homs’ Old City. Much of the area was damaged due to the fighting, in addition to regime missiles and artillery fire. Regime forces later forcibly displaced residents from all parts of Old Homs in 2014. The displacement soon led to widespread violations of the housing, land, and property rights in the old Homs and the Souk Al-Masqouf.

Afterwards, seemingly intentional fires broke out, damaging most of the shops in Souk Al-Masqouf, while looters seized anything they could dismantle and recycle, including metals and other debris, water piping, electrical wires, and phone lines.

In 2015, a committee formed to undertake restoration and rehabilitation works in Souk Al-Masqouf. Representatives of the Homs governorate, the city council, the directorates of antiquities and museums, the Chamber of Commerce, and other government entities and offices served on the committee. There were also representatives from the city’s local community.

Restoration work began in 2016 in Souk Al-Masqouf and some other smaller souks, with support from the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and Japan.

The work was split into four stages, with the first three so far complete.

The first stage lasted from 2016 to 2017 and included reopening the main roads in Souk Al-Masqouf and the other historic markets branching off of it. Rubble was also removed from these areas.

Second, in 2017, rubble found in Souk Al-Masqouf was recycled according to charts and plans available at the Homs municipality and the directorates of antiquities and museums. Some 680 partially damaged shops were also restored, which included installing new floors and ceilings.

The third phase, in 2019, aimed to rehabilitate infrastructure in the souk, including rehabilitating electrical, water, sewage, and landline networks; rebuilding the frameworks of destroyed shops; installing metal doors; and cleaning passageways. This phase also saw the installation of streetlights and power transformers throughout the souk.

Finally, in February 2022, Syria requested that the UNDP fund the fourth stage of the rehabilitation project. This stage is meant to restore 179 shops in some of Souk Al-Masqouf’s side streets and the Goldsmiths’ Souk and the Tailors’ Souk.