During the regular meetings held by the Damascus Governorate Council in January, members’ interventions focused on the delay in issuing licences for the restoration of old buildings in Old Damascus, which could expose them to the risk of collapse.

Old Damascus has its own directorate under the Damascus Governorate, serving as its municipality. Its jurisdiction is the area within the old walls of Damascus, extending from the Damascus Citadel and Al-Hamidiyah Souk in the west to Bab Sharqi in the east. This area has been listed on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1979.

The semi-official Al-Watan newspaper reported on January 14 that Omaima Abboud, the director of the Old Damascus Directorate, said that a new committee had been formed to inspect old properties in Old Damascus, assess their level of danger, and identify those at risk of collapse.

The committee comprises representatives from the Old Damascus Directorate, the Damascus branch of the Engineers Syndicate, and the Directorate of Service Departments in the Damascus Governorate. However, the formation of the new committee excluded the Directorate of Antiquities affiliated with the Ministry of Culture, the only body with the expertise and personnel capable of identifying damages in the old city and proposing ways to mitigate and repair them without harming the fabric of the old city.

There is a contradiction in the tasks and the need for the new committee. The duties of municipalities in the Damascus Governorate include inspecting buildings at risk of collapse and issuing urgent restoration licences for them. Therefore, the Old Damascus Directorate is responsible for regularly inspecting properties within its scope of work, taking necessary actions to mitigate risks to them, granting restoration licences, and supervising their implementation.

The Damascus Governorate is hindering the municipalities’ authority, including the Old Damascus Directorate, in issuing restoration permits, according to an informed source from the Damascus Governorate who spoke to The Syria Report. The Damascus Governorate is stringent in granting restoration licences (officially named the reinforcement and partial reconstruction licence) to owners of private properties in Old Damascus. The Governorate justifies this by stating that the area is historical and requires special treatment in terms of structural study, and the type and quantity of materials used in restoration. The Governorate also mandates the presence of the property owner or their heirs when applying for a restoration licence. This requirement is difficult to fulfil as Old Damascus is experiencing judicial disputes among generations of heirs over inheritance and old estates, as well as disagreements between tenants and landlords under old residential lease contracts and commercial leases subject to compulsory extension. These complications have led to restraint on disposal marks being placed on many properties’ land records, preventing the acquisition of restoration licences.

For example, a property in Old Damascus containing several residences may remain registered in the name of its owner decades after their death due to disputes among the heirs over the division of the estate. At the same time, that property is inhabited by multiple tenants under old lease contracts in the names of deceased individuals. Thus, disputes over properties in Old Damascus can occur on various levels, between the heirs of the property owners on one hand and between those heirs and the heirs of the tenants on the other. In all these cases, the rental law does not specify the contracting parties’ responsibility for restoration, nor does it oblige any party to undertake the restoration.

With all these complexities, no party can obtain a regular restoration licence. Therefore, to protect against the collapse of the property onto its inhabitants, residents sometimes resort to conducting restorations without a licence, which the Damascus Governorate considers a construction violation under Legislative Decree No. 40 of 2012. Property owners lose the right to obtain a restoration licence in case of violation. Initially, the unlicensed violation must be settled before applying for a new restoration licence. However, the Damascus Governorate no longer accepts the settlement of violations before the issuance of Law No. 40 of 2012. 

The Governor of Damascus insists that the only solution for any construction violation is its removal and demolition. Therefore, it’s notable that members of the Governorate Council have, during recent meetings, called for the settlement of building violations in Old Damascus that can be proven to have occurred before the issuance of Law 40 of 2012.

On the other hand, in the absence of problems between heirs and tenants, residents of Old Damascus face another equally complex dilemma. The area is archaeological, and sometimes there is a conflict of authority between, on the one hand, the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Endowments, and the Ministry of Tourism, and on the other, the Damascus governorate regarding the restoration of some properties. 

If the owner of a private property in an archaeological area manages to obtain a restoration licence, the restoration must be supervised by the Damascus Governorate and the Ministry of Culture. If the property is built on a religious endowment property or adjacent to a religious site, the Ministry of Endowments must also be involved in the supervision. The Ministry of Tourism is added if the property has a tourism facility. In all cases, the restoration is at the property owner’s expense alone. These supervisory bodies do not provide any assistance, financial support, guarantees, or banking facilities for restoring damaged properties, even if the property is at risk of collapse. The Damascus Governorate does not intervene in restoring any property at risk of collapse unless it poses a danger to public facilities.