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Profile: Expansion Areas in Aleppo City

30-07-2024/in Analysis & Features, HLP /by Rand Shamaa

For decades, the Aleppo City Council has been working on expanding the city, incorporating large areas, in the north and west, into its master zoning plan. While some of these expansion areas include informal settlements, they also encompass non-informal areas that have been fully expropriated, rezoned, and subdivided.

Since the approval of Aleppo’s master zoning plan in 2004, ratified in 2005, the City Council has prepared detailed studies and plans for 14 areas within it. These include informal settlements aimed at accommodating the city’s population growth. The total expansion areas stretch north and west of Aleppo, covering 24,000 hectares and encompassing the entire real estate areas of Kafr Hamra, Kafr Dael, Balleramoun, and Handarat, as well as parts of the real estate areas of Haritan, Al-Shuqayf, and Al-Castillo.

These fourteen areas had previously undergone a long history of expropriation or rezoning before 2004 under one of the following laws: the Cities Planning and Urban Development Law No. 9 of 1974, the Urban Expansion Law No. 60 of 1979, or its amendment by the Urban Expansion Law No. 26 of 2000. It is worth noting that the Planning and Urban Development Law No. 23 of 2015 replaced Laws No. 60 of 1979 and 26 of 2000.

However, under the 2004 master plan, all previous expansion areas were subjected to the provisions of the Urban Expansion Law No. 26 of 2000. Within the plan, the expansion areas were divided into eight areas and given new names: Northern N1-N2-N3-N4 and Western W1-W2-W3-W4.

For non-informal expansion areas, Law No. 26 of 2000 stipulated the application of its second article, involving the full expropriation of the area, followed by the preparation of a detailed plan after deducting one-third of the land for free, used for public infrastructure. The resulting residential plots, after valuation, are to be handled by selling 60 percent of them at cost price to public entities and housing cooperatives, and giving back 40 percent to the original landowners of the expropriated land.

Under Law No. 26 of 2000, the Aleppo City Council expropriated these areas, rezoning them, and divided them into plots ready for construction. The council took on the task of preparing the plots for construction, which included levelling the land and providing the necessary infrastructure and public amenities, such as roads, parks, water, electricity, and sewage networks. The costs of these facilities are added to the overall cost of the area, affecting the price of the plots that the council is entitled to sell.

There are three categories of construction-ready plots:

Firstly, plots for public structures: These include buildings for the city council, schools, hospitals, police stations, mosques, cultural centres, and sports fields. Public sector institutions are expected to construct these buildings and hand them over to the relevant authorities without any financial compensation.

Secondly, plots for service buildings: These include markets, commercial shops, and professional trade markets, which the city council has the right to sell to the private sector.

Third, residential plots: These are intended for residential buildings and constitute the largest portion, representing 60 percent of the total plots. These plots are allocated to housing cooperatives and public sector institutions for cooperative and social housing projects.

Additionally, within this category, shares equivalent to the estimated value of their expropriated properties are allocated to the original landowners, who must build on these plots at their own expense. Alternatively, owners can be paid expropriation compensation within five years of the expropriation decree.

The City Council allocated some of the construction-ready plots in the N1, N4, and W3 areas to registered housing cooperatives in Aleppo. The council assigned each cooperative a specific number of plots, distributed equally among them. These plots were sold to the cooperatives under official contracts, with payments made in instalments.

In late 2009, the City Council began distributing the construction-ready plots purchased by the housing cooperatives. The cooperatives are responsible for constructing residential buildings on these plots and selling them to their applicants. In 2011, the Prime Minister issued letter No. 14071 to the Ministry of Local Administration and Environment and the Ministry of Economy and Foreign Trade to complete the distribution and handover procedures for the plots allocated to housing cooperatives in the N1, N4, and W3 areas. However, the entire process came to a halt due to the revolution, the subsequent war, and the ensuing siege and destruction in Aleppo.

The Aleppo City Council did not fulfil its required tasks of preparing the plots for construction or providing them with infrastructure and public facilities. One of the flaws of Law No. 26 of 2000 is that it did not impose any time limits, financial penalties, or interest for delays in the rezoning and subdivision of the expansion areas. The law also did not require the administrative units to compensate those affected by the expropriation of their properties for delays in handing over the allocated plots or failing to pay expropriation compensation. The same applies to the housing cooperatives, which were unable to meet their commitments to their applicants.

Armed opposition forces managed to take control of parts of the western expansion areas, but in early 2020, regime forces, supported by militias loyal to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, regained control of these areas. Meanwhile, some northern expansion areas are currently under the control of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units. The remaining expansion areas are almost completely destroyed due to battles and heavy shelling by regime forces between 2013 and 2016.

Justice Ministry Imposes Fresh HLP Restrictions

09-04-2024/in HLP, News /by Rand Shamaa

On March 10, Minister of Justice Ahmed Al-Sayed issued two circulars that restrict the ability of property owners in concerned areas to manage their properties. The first, No. 3, concerns lawsuits related to the partition, subdivision, termination of common property and correction of property descriptions. The second, No. 4, deals with the irrevocable power of attorney in areas undergoing beautification and the termination of common property.

Circular No. 3

Circular No. 3 is directed at judges in judicial bodies dealing with cases related to the termination of common property ownership, subdivision, and the correction of property descriptions. It mandates adherence to the content of previous circulars issued by the ministry concerning these cases. Additionally, Circular No. 3 emphasises that the Judicial Inspection Directorate (JID) and public prosecutors monitor the proper application of the circular and report any violations.

JID is an independent judicial entity headed by a judge, affiliated with the Higher Judicial Council and the Justice Minister. Its role includes regular inspections of the work of judges, courts, judicial departments, public prosecution, notary public offices, bar associations, and their branches, among other legal and judicial entities. A public prosecutor is a judge who works under the supervision of the Attorney General in the public prosecution office, is assigned tasks by the Attorney General, and receives complaints about the judicial system and public prosecution.

Circular No. 3 requests judges, the JID, and public prosecutors to adhere to the contents of a previous circular, No. 40 of 2016. This circular asserts that the relevant administrative units must be represented in cases concerning the subdivision and correction of property descriptions. If the co-owners of a common property do not agree on its voluntary partition, they must file a lawsuit in court for its division among them through a judgement that can be executed in the Land Registry, except in cases of obstacles such as construction violations. To ensure no such violation exists, the administrative units must be represented in these cases as the executive authority in the concerned real estate area, knowledgeable about zoning plans and building codes.

Furthermore, Circular No. 3 instructs judges, the JID, and public prosecutors to comply with the procedures and provisions of Article 64 of the Local Administration Law No. 107 of 2011 concerning partition, subdivision, and zoning cases, as stipulated in the previous Circular No. 27 of 2021. Zoning cases are legal actions filed by a property owner if they suffer a loss due to the zoning of the area, such as receiving inadequate compensation.

Article 64 of Law No. 107 of 2012 states that it is not permissible to divide, subdivide, or zone lands within the boundaries of an administrative unit, or to subdivide any already built construction, without a certified plan from the administrative unit. This plan must delineate the property boundaries and its surroundings, including the locations of main and side streets, and public utilities.

Circular No. 4

Meanwhile, Circular No. 4, addressed to notaries, the JID, and public prosecutors, responds to a previous letter from the Central Authority for the Supervision and Inspection (CASI) regarding some notaries’ violations of the provisions of Article No. 4 of the Beautification and Termination of Common Property Law No. 166 of 1967 and its amendments. These violations involve documenting irrevocable power of attorneys in property areas subject to beautification and termination of common property operations.

The CASI is an independent regulatory body affiliated with the Prime Minister, aiming to achieve effective supervision over the state’s administrations and institutions. This is to improve performance, preserve public funds, enhance productivity and efficiency, and facilitate the provision of services to citizens.

Law No. 166 of 1967 on the beautification and termination of common property is still in force. Its first article clarifies that the purpose of beautification and termination of common property operations is to partition commonly owned agricultural lands among their owners, or to beautify excessively fragmented agricultural lands by providing the owner with a single plot instead of several scattered ones. This aims to facilitate the investment and reclamation of lands. Article 3 of the law stipulates the formation of a committee in each real estate area to conduct beautification and termination of common property tasks. This committee includes the area’s real estate judge, the director of the Land Record in the governorate, the head of technical services directorate, a representative from the General Union of Farmers, and an expert from the local community appointed by the governor as a member.

Article 4, mentioned in the Justice Minister’s circular, specifies that upon the formation of the Beautification and Termination of Common Property Committee, all courts must refer all cases related to real property rights within the concerned property area to this committee. Furthermore, implementation departments must refrain from enforcing any cases related to the real property rights of that area. Additionally, the Land Record must abstain from accepting and registering any property transactions for the mentioned area until the completion of the operations is announced and the properties resulting from the beautification and termination of common property are registered in the names of their owners in the Land Record.

Law No. 166 of 1967 sets the duration of the Beautification and termination of common property Committees’ work at six months for a property area that does not exceed 100 properties after beautification, and eight months for an area with 200 properties. However, if the committee’s work exceeds these periods, the law states that the committee should not receive any additional compensation. In practice, there are entire areas where the committees have not completed their work despite decades passing since their formation. This includes areas of Damascus, such as in East Tijara, Adawi, and the planning area of South Midan.

Circular No. 4 also requests notaries to refrain from documenting any irrevocable power of attorney that includes the authorisation to sell property in an area where beautification and termination of common property operations have been announced, due to what the circular describes as preventing the obstruction of the committees’ work.

The incomplete work of the committees has led property owners, who are in need to sell their properties, to draft sales contracts and have them notarised as irrevocable power of attorney, wherein the seller delegates the buyer to transfer the property ownership to their name upon the completion of the beautification and termination of common property operations. Thus, the new circular stops this method of selling in areas under beautification and termination of common property until the committees have completed their work, arguing that these notarised irrevocable power of attorney obstruct the committees’ work due to changes in ownership.

Coerced Farmland Sales South of Damascus Amid Rumours of Al-Salam International Highway Project

05-03-2024/in HLP, News /by Rand Shamaa

Damascus traders are pressuring property owners west of the old Damascus-Suweida road to sell at lower prices than the prevailing prices in the area. The reason for the focus on these properties is unclear, though recent rumours hint at a possible reinstatement of the Al-Salam Highway project passing through the area or the start of a new industrial zone project.

These properties belong to the village of Khirbet Al-Shiyab, which is part of the Kisweh district in the Rural Damascus governorate. Khirbet Al-Shiyab is located on the administrative border between the governorates of Damascus and Suweida, adjacent to the village of Khalkhala and its military airport in the northern rural part of the Suweida governorate. The area is close to the city of Sayyida Zeinab in Rural Damascus. It contains military sites belonging to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and its allied Syrian militias. Although the village of Khirbet Al-Shiyab is small, part of its land has been expropriated since the 1960s for the benefit of the Ministry of Defence, with air defence brigades such as Brigade-157 and Brigade-155 having their headquarters nearby. Due to the presence of Roman and Ottoman archaeological sites, the village also has seen expropriations for the benefit of the Directorate of Antiquities and Museums in the Ministry of Culture.

It appears that Damascus real estate traders have been looking for agricultural land in the area for months and are purchasing land whose property records have no disposal restrictions. This has caused a stir in the real estate market in Khirbet Al-Shiyab, as well as in neighbouring villages and towns such as Matala, Najha, and Al-Adiliyah, raising their prices.

The reason for the rush to buy land in this area is unclear. However, some influential traders and businessmen initiate the purchase of land or properties in specific areas, often due to their prior knowledge of plans to implement investment or service projects that could increase property prices there. Thus, these traders can profit by purchasing properties at low prices and then selling them at higher prices after the planned projects are implemented.

For example, Mohammad owns 10 hectares of land in Khirbet al-Shiyab communally with two partners, holding a title deed since before 2011. The land is agricultural, with one of its edges stretching 50 metres along the old Damascus-Suweida road, and it is bordered to the west by the Al-Salam Highway project. Mohammad told The Syria Report that Damascus real estate traders, some with close connections to security and military bodies, are pressuring land and property owners in the area to sell below the prevailing market rates. Mohammad explained that one trader offered them SYP 20 million per dunum (about USD 1,350), while the current rate in the area is much higher (SYP 120 million). When the partners refused to sell, personnel from the Brigade-157 air defence set up a tent on their land. The officer in charge of the tent told Mohammad that a military point and air defence system would later be established on their land to “counter Israeli attacks.”

According to Mohammad, the tent and the threat of establishing a military site on their land were coordinated between the real estate trader and officers from Brigade 157, all to pressure the partners into selling the land at a low price. However, Mohammad managed to remove the soldiers’ tent through his acquaintance with an officer in the military intelligence division responsible for the area.

In any case, this is legally considered property extorsion, meaning taking over someone else’s property without their consent or obtaining possession of it without a legal title to ownership or a legitimate reason.

A similar situation happened with Said, who told The Syria Report that he was forced to sell part of his land to a Damascus trader at much lower than the market rate to get rid of a military force that had taken over his land under the pretext of installing an air defence system. Said adds that after the sale was completed, the military personnel withdrew and left no trace behind.

Notably, these lands in Khirbet al-Shiyab were previously proposed as part of the Al-Salam Highway project, a commercial international route connecting Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. The Al-Salam Highway is expected to cross the Syrian-Lebanese border at the Masnaa-Jdeidet Yabous point, then pass through the towns of Abu Qawooq, Mazraat Al-Nafoor, and Husseiniya in Quneitra, and the cities and towns of Zakia, Moadamiyet Al-Sham, Khan Al-Shih, Qatana and Khirbet Al-Shiyab in Rural Damascus, and Ghbaggib and Mankat Al-Hatab in Daraa, reaching the Nassib-Jaber border crossing with Jordan.

Rumours about the Al-Salam Highway project began in 2006, coinciding with a property-buying spree along its proposed route by real estate brokers on behalf of the Mashreq Investment Fund company, owned by businessman Rami Makhlouf. The company managed to purchase hundreds of hectares along the proposed route. Most of these lands are rocky and unfit for agriculture. Some of the lands were taken by the regime’s Seventh Division, preventing their owners from using them without officially expropriating them. This buying spree led to a rise in land prices along the proposed route, with the price per dunum (1,000 square metres) reaching SYP 2.5 million (approximately USD 50,000 at the time) from a pre-2006 price of SYP 20,000 (about USD 400).

The situation was not without complications. Most of the properties purchased by Mashreq Investment Fund were undivided shares of commonly owned lands, meaning Mashreq became an additional communal partner. Therefore, in March 2019, Mashreq lawyers filed lawsuits against the other share-owning partners in various locations to terminate the common ownership. For example, a meeting was held between the real estate judge and the common partners in the city of Zakia to agree on termination. During the meeting, brokers offered the remaining common owners in those lands to sell their shares to the company for USD 3,000 per dunum. However, most of the partners refused the offer and refused to agree to a subdivision plan that would transfer their shares away from the proposed highway’s route.

Despite renewed discussions about reviving the Al-Salam Highway project, no tangible changes have occurred except in Khirbet Al-Shiyab. Instead, there are plans for another project in the area, potentially driving Damascus traders to purchase land there. A source from the village speculated to The Syria Report that the motivation behind land purchases could be a proposed plan to establish an “eco-friendly” industrial zone. This initiative was previously announced by the Director of Decision Support and Regional Planning in the Rural Damascus Governorate, AbdulRazzaq Damiriya, in December 2018 and also by the Director of Industrial Zones in Damascus, Asaad Khalouf, in February 2019.

The proposed industrial zone project would cover 250 hectares of land next to Khirbet Al-Shiyab and is expected to include eco-friendly industries such as textiles, pharmaceuticals, wood crafts, traditional heritage crafts, and more. Mr Damiriya mentioned to the official news agency SANA that the governorate had signed a contract with Tishreen University to prepare the general and detailed zoning plans and planning studies for the new industrial zone, including land use plans, topographics, and subdivision plans. He noted that most properties proposed for the industrial zone are state-owned, while 30 to 40 hectares are privately owned.

Mr Damiriya stated that the rest of the land would not be expropriated but would be developed under a public-private partnership law. According to Law No. 5 of 2016 on public-private partnerships, such partnerships are contractual relationships of agreed duration between a public entity and a private sector partner. The private partner invests in designing, constructing, executing, maintaining, rehabilitating, developing, managing, or operating a public facility or project for the public entity, aiming to contribute directly to public service or any service in the public interest to the contracting public entity or on its behalf to the end beneficiary. Despite Damiriya’s announcement that work on the industrial zone would begin in 2019 and the subdivision of plots would be completed by 2020, no developments have occurred on the ground since then.

Calls to Subdivide Properties in Upscale District of Damascus

05-03-2024/in HLP, News /by Rand Shamaa

According to pro-government media reports, during a regular meeting of the Damascus Governorate Council in mid-January 2024, members called for the subdivision and correction of descriptions for the Adawi and Eastern Tijara areas and the issuance of ownership deeds for their properties.

Nouri Salman, the director of the Provisional Land Register at the Damascus Directorate of Cadastral Affairs, explained to the semi-official Al-Watan newspaper that the subdivision and correction of descriptions for these properties are within the jurisdiction of the Damascus Directorate of Cadastral Affairs and the Damascus governorate. He added that to subdivide and correct the descriptions of these properties, a request must be submitted to the Damascus governorate to open a technical mandate for the horizontal subdivision of the area, followed by its vertical subdivision, the so-called “Building subdivision”, after which the deeds can be transferred from the Provisional Land Register to the Land Register in the Directorate of Cadastral Affairs.

The technical mandate is a process of technical inspection of a property to determine its boundaries on the ground, carried out by a committee from the Directorate of Cadastral Affairs, with a representative from the administrative unit to which the property belongs. Opening a technical mandate means submitting a request to the Directorate of Cadastral Affairs in the concerned governorate to schedule a date for the technical inspection of the property.

The correction of descriptions is an administrative transaction conducted by the Directorate of Cadastral Affairs upon request from the property owner. The process aims to match the property descriptions recorded in its Land Record with its actual condition. For example, a property may be recorded as agricultural land while it is actually a multi-storey building.

Meanwhile, the subdivision of a property is a technical transaction conducted by the Directorate of Cadastral Affairs based on a request from the property owners. The aim is to divide the property into separate and independent properties. The property subdivision process is conducted as if the property were commonly owned.

Horizontal division involves:

Splitting the land into plots prepared for construction.
Assigning each a number.
Entering them into the Provisional Land Register.

Subsequently, the owner of one of these plots can obtain a construction permit for a building with multiple floors and residences. After the building’s completion and the sale of these homes, the plot can be vertically subdivided, creating a new land record for each apartment within the building as an independent property. These real estate occurrences are then transferred from the Provisional Land Register to the Permanent Land Register.

The Eastern Tijara and Adawi areas in Damascus are an urban extension, partly informal, located east of Damascus city. Al-Tijara and Al-Adawi are considered upscale neighbourhoods in Damascus, known for their modern construction, spacious apartments, high prices, green spaces, parks, and public amenities. The extension of the area began in the 1950s on agricultural lands known as Al-Adawi orchards.

In Eastern Tijara and Adawi, there are three types of properties: first, licensed buildings on zoned land with ownership deeds, subdivided and registered in the Land Registry, each residence having an independent land record, allowing relatively easy sale and purchase unless there are restraints on disposal against it. Most of these buildings were constructed in the 1950s and 1960s.

Second, particularly in the western part of the Eastern Tijara neighbourhood, are buildings licensed and constructed by housing cooperatives on zoned land. Most are subdivided horizontally, not vertically. These buildings were erected during the 1970s and 1980s. Reasons preventing the vertical subdivision of properties include the death of one of the owners and placing restraints on disposal mark on the entire original property until the heirs agree on dividing their shares or unresolved building violations. In such cases, the real estate occurrences are registered in the Provisional Land Legister using ownership documents issued by the Directorate of Housing Cooperation in the Ministry of Public Works and Housing to establish ownership and complete sale and purchase transactions. However, these are not transferred to the Land Registry because the property has not been subdivided vertically.

Thirdly, there are unlicensed buildings erected on zoned land more than 40 years ago in the far eastern part of the area. Still, they have not been horizontally subdivided and, therefore, not vertically subdivided either. These buildings were constructed in the 1980s, marked by construction chaos in Damascus, when landowners built on their plots before subdividing them horizontally into building-ready plots, yet adhered to the urban planning and building regulations, aiming for future licensing. In the area, there are multiple cases where a single piece of land has several buildings on it. However, it still remains as one property not subdivided into construction-ready plots. Therefore, all these buildings and the residences within them are still owned in common by their owners, with one land record. The process of horizontal subdivision has been hindered over time, especially with multiple building violations, generations of heirs, and restraints on disposal. Many of these homeowners have no proof of ownership other than court judgments affirming their purchase contracts.

According to The Syria Report’s local correspondent, there are hundreds of affected individuals in the second and third types of buildings, where these homeowners and residents cannot secure loans with their properties as collateral, obtain restoration permits, or sell them officially. The market value of these residences is much lower than their counterparts in the same area. Initiating a technical assignment process for description correction and subdivision is not as straightforward as local authorities claim. The Directorate of Cadastral Affairs requires all co-owners of a property to apply for description correction and subdivision, a hard task due to the presence of hundreds of heirs and their legal representatives, not to mention those who have emigrated or are absent.