Early in January 2022, the Damascus governorate began removing most of the portable commercial kiosks that had been set up on public property, given that the kiosks’ licencing period had ended last year. The governorate exempted kiosks owned by wounded regime veterans and family members of “martyrs.”

The Damascus governorate began distributing warnings in late 2021 informing kiosk owners that they must clear out and remove their portable shops, as per a circular issued by the Minister of Local Administration on December 19. The circular was based on the ministry’s previous Circular No. 347 of 2019, which granted licences to existing kiosks for a period of no more than three years, ending at the beginning of 2022. Kiosks owned by wounded regime soldiers and family members of “martyrs” were granted an additional one-year occupancy period, so long as the licence holders pledged not to demand renewal.

Removing the kiosks means demanding that owners permanently dismantle them and either move them outside Damascus or sell them to others who do have licences. This is because ownership of the kiosks belongs to the owners themselves, rather than to the Damascus governorate. The governorate’s role is simply to grant licences for the kiosks that will then occupy certain sidewalks and public spaces in return for an annual fee.

Until the end of 2021, there were around 500 such kiosks in the city of Damascus, divided into two categories according to the type of licence they had obtained:

“Support kiosks,” which had been granted to people with special needs and whose licences were previously not subject to any time limits. These are the category of kiosks that the Damascus governorate has now begun to remove. Usually, the licence for these kiosks ended with the death of the licence holder and could not be inherited. The licences for “support kiosks” were often granted to people who had collaborated with the security forces, with some kiosk owners tasked with certain security duties. In 2019, the Ministry of Local Administration decided to end licencing for this type of kiosk and forbade local administrative units from granting new licences of the kind. The ministry also informed owners of a three-year deadline to remove their kiosks. There are 300 of these “support kiosks” in Damascus city.

The second category is called “kiosks for wounded veterans or martyrs’ families.” These were granted over the past decade to some family members of regime soldiers or pro-regime militia members who had been killed at war and to some injured soldiers. There are around 200 of these kiosks in Damascus and were granted an additional one-year licence period, set to conclude at the end of 2022.

The Damascus governorate issued a booklet in 2017 that detailed the specifications that kiosks must meet in order to operate and the locations in which they are authorised to set up. The price of the new kiosk’s structure, which conforms to the specifications, amounted to SYP 1.5 million at the time.

Then in 2019, the Damascus governorate determined the criteria for granting licences for the second category of kiosks. Wounded beneficiaries must have a disability rate of 70 to 100 percent, according to government criteria. Meanwhile, for family members of killed soldiers, beneficiaries must not be employees or recipients of any other government support programmes. Licences for the kiosks would only be granted to Damascus city residents.

Neither the Ministry of Local Administration nor the Damascus governorate clarified whether there would be alternatives provided for the kiosks removed in 2022. However, there does seem to be a new plan to licence the kiosks at higher prices in the future, which is likely given the recent increases in the fees for occupying public property.

Article 16 of the Financial Law of Administrative Units No. 37 of 2021 states that occupancy of public properties, such as roads, sidewalks, squares, and parking lots, requires a licence granted by the local administrative unit’s executive office. This licence, which the grantee may not hand over to others, determines the surface area permitted for the occupancy, as well as the length and type of occupancy. Though the 2021 law did not mention kiosks by name, it set the fee for the occupancy of public spaces at SYP 100-3,000 per square metre daily. The fee would be collected in advance every three months or for the entirety of the occupancy period – whichever is less. The maximum annual fee for a four-square-metre kiosk in Damascus would be around SYP4.32 million, meaning that the Damascus governorate could collect at most SYP 2 billion from the 500 local kiosks annually.

The 2021 law also imposes a fine of SYP 10,000-50,000 on anyone who occupies a public space without a licence. The administrative unit’s executive office has the power to cancel licences, provided that the occupant is given no more than one month’s notice to vacate the property. The occupancy fee would still be in effect for this period.

In December 2021, the Damascus governorate called on rights holders in the Basilia City area south of Damascus to submit applications for title deeds for their so-called “organisational shares” to the Directorate of Implementation of Decree No. 66. Basilia City is located south of the southern ring highway and covers 954 hectares of land, containing more than 100,000 title deeds according to official statements.

But before submitting their applications, rights holders must visit the Directorate for Implementation of Decree No. 66 in order to complete their personal data – including providing a copy of their ID and ownership contract – in order to print their organisational share deeds. It is unclear whether this completion of personal data is part of the application for the deed or if a separate application must be submitted to undergo this process.

Riyad Diab, head of the Directorate for Implementation of Decree No. 66, told local media that rightsholders may receive their organisational share title deeds five days after submitting their applications. He added that the directorate would distribute the deeds gradually and by real estate zone, from Kafr Sousseh to Darayya, then Mazzeh, Qanawat Basatin, and Midan Sultani. Distribution would take four months and be completed by early April 2022.

During the second session of the regular meeting of the Damascus governorate council on January 10, Diab told attendees that his directorate had distributed 4,000 of the total 14,000 deeds printed for the Kafr Sousseh real estate zone. However, the Kafr Sousseh real estate zone is split between Basilia City and the neighbouring Marota City project, making it unclear whether all of the 14,000 deeds were indeed for Basilia City. Diab added that half of the property owners in Kafr Sousseh had not yet completed their personal data to obtain the title deeds.

In accordance with Decree No. 66, the organisational shares for each rightsholder are calculated by several special committees in a complex process. Essentially, the first committee estimates the value of rights holders’ properties in Syrian pounds according to the “current value” on the date of evaluation. Then the development zone is converted to the common ownership of the rights holders, theoretically with each person retaining their equity. Afterwards, another committee estimates the values of organisational plots of land that are meant for construction and allocated only to the rights holders in accordance with the zoning plan. Meanwhile, the Damascus governorate is entitled to deduct large swathes of the development zone free of charge in order to create plots for investment or public services. Anyway, the values of organisational plots are also calculated in Syrian pounds, but there are no clear criteria for the appraisal process because the plots are not yet built upon. In any case, the value of the organisational plots is then divided among the rights holders according to their individual equities – this is how each rightsholder comes to obtain what is called an “organisational share”. Finally, the Directorate for Implementation of Decree No. 66 issues the nominal values for the organisational shares in each development zone.

Currently being printed are the title deeds for organisational shares in a development zone that is not yet built upon. Next, the trading process is expected to begin for those shares. According to official statements, people may only trade shares after the title deed distribution process is completed and may carry out the trading process for a period of one year. Afterwards people may apply for the allocation and selection of plots.

Several groups have formed in recent weeks on Facebook and WhatsApp, each of which includes dozens of big shareholders who had agreed amongst themselves on a unified price for the shares, an informed source told The Syria Report. Some of the group members were lawyers and notables from the area now covered by Basilia City. They offered advice and suggestions to other group members to agree on a standard share price. Still, share prices remain very low and are lower than those in the nearby Marota City project. Meanwhile, some other social media groups also emerged whose members are small shareholders. These shareholders might sell at low prices, with no public sales officially recorded so far.

Certain parties are likely to buy large numbers of shares with the aim of owning an entire organisational plot – this makes it easier to build on those plots or sell later on. Some large shareholders may also partner in some organisational plots. Usually, those with small shares resort simply to selling them, but if a part of the share remains unbought or unsold, it will later hinder the allocation and construction of many organisational plots. This is why the governorate is stressing the need to distribute all of the shares at this stage in order to ease the trading process.

The pace of implementation of Decree No. 237, issued on September 14, 2021, to establish a zoning area at the northern entrance to Damascus has quickened in recent weeks. The Damascus governorate appears determined to adhere to the timetable set for establishing the development zone in accordance with the provisions of Law No. 10 of 2018. The 2018 law authorises the creation of one or more such zones within the general zoning plan of an administrative unit. The northern entrance project is the first instance of the controversial law going into effect in Damascus governorate.

The more recent Decree No. 237 stipulated the creation of a development zone based on Zoning Plan No. 104, which was issued and approved in June 2019 in accordance with Law No. 10. The 200-hectare development zone encompassas the Qaboun Industrial Zone, which itself comprises 50 hectares of land carved out of neighbouring Harasta.

In October 2021, the Damascus governorate formed four committees tasked with the categorisation and inventory of real estate in the area. The governorate has granted rights holders a full year, starting from October 24, 2021, to submit documents proving their rights to the Directorate for Implementation of Decree No. 66, which is part of the governorate. According to official statements, the committees are expected to complete their categorisation and inventory work within three months – that is, by this upcoming February.

The Directorate for Implementation of Decree No. 66 oversees the development zone at Damascus’ northern entrance, despite the fact that its zoning plans fall under Law No. 10 – an indication that the Damascus governorate sees the two laws as complementary.

When the Inventory and Description Committee completes its duties, the Real Estate Appraisal committee will take over in order to determine the equities granted to right holders. Then, the Distribution Committee will convert these into development zone shares.

The Damascus governorate has wasted little time in carrying out this process. In late November 2021, the Directorate for Implementation of Decree No. 66 invited rights holders to convene at its headquarters in Al-Mazzeh to elect their representatives to the committees. On December 05, they elected two experts to represent them in the Real Estate Appraisal Committee and another two to represent them in the Distribution Committee. The Distribution Committee estimates the value of organisational plots of land within the development zone and distributes them to rights holders.

Threats of use of force between militants in a village in the eastern part of the Suweida Governorate have shed light on the precariousness of housing, land, and property rights. The incident also demonstrated that the most vulnerable local social groups are at the highest risk of losing those rights.

In mid-December 2021, the National Defence Forces (NDF), which are affiliated with the regime, threatened to attack the village of Al-Hariseh, which borders the desertous Badia area of eastern Suweida Governorate. The escalation came as part of an attempt by the NDF to expell an armed group calling itself the Anti-Terrorism Force from the village, amid a broader regime security and military deployment across the governorate. However, fear of military escalation prompted the most prominent leaders of the Anti-Terrorism Force in Al-Hariseh to quit the group in January 2022, lowering the risk of a potential clash and returning relative calm to the village.

Previously, the NDF tried encouraging residents of Al-Hariseh to expell Anti-Terrorism Force members from the village. For example, NDF members set up checkpoints and detonated shells in the air to incite fear. One of the shells landed on a house on November 19, partially destroying it. The Anti-Terrorism Force subsequently mobilised its members, turning Al-Hariseh into a military zone. Some residents fled to Suweida city and to the surrounding villages.

Amid these tensions, a tent encampment of more than 20 Bedouin families east of Al-Hariseh came under indiscriminate gunfire, though no injuries were reported. The incident caused the displacement of some of the families to the town of Al-Qastal, which lies deeper in the Badia region. Some of these Bedouin families work in herding livestock belonging to residents of Al-Hariseh. The recent displacement has negatively impacted Al-Hariseh residents, who now avoid going to their lands lying east of the village for fear of the reactions from displaced Bedouin families.

Though the potential for a military clash in Al-Hariseh has subsided, the displaced Bedouin families have yet to return, harming the economy of the agriculture- and livestock-dependent village.

The Anti-Terrorism Force was founded several months ago and grew rapidly in many parts of Suweida before recently declining to only some rural eastern parts of the governorate. The group defines itself as an independent force working to fill the security vacuum in Suweida. The NDF, whose members all hail from Suweida, has taken a hostile stance against the Anti-Terrorism Force since its founding, accusing the group of receiving foreign funds and conspiring against “national unity.” At the same time, the Anti-Terrorism Force accuses the NDF of affiliation with the Lebanese Hezbollah.

The Quneitra Governorate and notables from the city of Khan Arnabeh reached an agreement in late 2021 to address the lack of state property within real estate zone number 1/58, according to a quote attributed by the Al-Watan newspaper to the director of Cadastral Affairs in the Quneitra Governorate.

According to a local correspondent for The Syria Report, agricultural land in Khan Arnabeh that had been seized under Agrarian Reform Law No. 161 of 1958 was later distributed to residents and local farmers. Under Article 6 of that law, the state may take a share of the seized property to implement public projects or build facilities for the public benefit. The state may also ensure that its share is located in one real estate zone, as it did in Khan Arnabeh, where the state was allocated a share of real estate zone 1/58. According to our correspondent, the total area of the zone is around 50 hectares and the state’s share is about 10 percent of it.

The main obstacle preventing the subdivision of properties in zone 1/58 between rights holders is that the state property within the zone has not yet been determined, nor is the percentage of deduction from private properties. Thus, the ownership of the rights holders remains only as shares. The state has subsequently placed a sign on all the properties in zone 1/58 preventing their disposal, meaning that rights holders are not permitted to sell or dispose of their shares. Nevertheless, large parts of zone 1/58 were included in the city’s zoning plans after the latest expansion of the plans in 2012-2015. The new plans changed the status of the land from agricultural to residential-commercial that can be constructed upon, which of course led to increased prices that people still cannot benefit from.

A solution to this problem came in the form of rights holders relinquishing part of their shares to the state after determining their exact location. The implementation of the agreement reached at the end of last year will positively impact private property by lifting the sign that previously prevented their disposal, according to the newspaper. At the same time, this agreement would preserve state property. Under the agreement, after officially relinquishing their shares, rights holders must file a lawsuit to terminate the common property, so that they may clearly determine their shares and the locations of those shares.  The agreement has yet to be implemented.

In the decade following the issuance of the Agrarian Reform Law, the state seized properties beyond what it described as the ceiling for agricultural ownership – that is, those between 15 and 200 hectares according to the region and type of irrigation – and became the owner of those seized lands. The state then determined the surface areas of the seized properties in each village and distributed them to residents and farmers.

Syria’s Prime Minister laid the foundation stone in December 2021 for the Al-Amal residential suburb project in the city of Hama, located in Al-Naqarneh along the Hama-Aleppo highway.

According to official statements, the project covers an area of 104 hectares and is composed of 7,000 residential apartments distributed over 60 plots for cooperative housing, 83 plots for social housing and 19 plots for owners of expropriated lands. The project site was expropriated by the General Housing Establishment. The General Company for Construction and Development is set to build the infrastructure for the project for an estimated cost of SYP 7.6 billion.

Following these statements, the General Housing Establishment announced the sale of the 60 housing plots allocated for cooperative housing to housing cooperatives in the Hama Governorate. Any cooperative hoping to purchase one of the plots must submit a written request to the Directorate of Housing Cooperatives in the Hama Governorate, which is affiliated with the Ministry of Public Works and Housing. The request must be accompanied by the necessary documents as well as a written pledge that the cooperative will make an advance payment of SYP 180 million before attending the public allocation sessions for the plots.

Al-Naqarneh is a big area just south of the city of Hama home to a large informally built neighbourhood called Mashaa Al-Naqarneh or Hayy Al-Naqarneh, as well as privately owned farmland. Informally built homes began to appear en masse over the past decade on farmland expropriated by the state in 1983. The Hama City C0uncil issued zoning plans in 2008 for the expropriated farmlands in Mashaa Al-Naqarneh, granting permits to housing cooperatives to construct 1,724 housing units within an area of 104 hectares. Some of the units have already been constructed. However, in September 2018, the Hama governorate waged a wide-reaching demolition campaign in the district under the Building Violations Legislative Decree No. 40 of 2012. Some of the buildings constructed by the cooperatives were also demolished for unclear reasons. The demolitions continued over the course of an entire week.

The location of the Al-Amal suburb and its zoning plans – whether or not they overlap with the current site of Mashaa Al-Naqarneh – remain unclear. However, it does appear that the suburb could be a new, amended copy of the old zoning plans for Mashaa Al-Naqarneh that were issued in 2008, with the number of housing units raised from 1,724 to around 7,000 within a 104-hectare area. What is notable is the project’s transition from merely a cooperative housing project to one that includes both cooperative and social housing under the supervision of the General Housing Establishment.

According to Al-Watan, a pro-government newspaper, Mashaa Al-Naqarneh still contains many buildings that violate the building code and that belong to “big traders whose violations nobody dares to interfere with.” Previous attempts were made to add Mashaa Al-Naqarneh to the zoning plans for Hama city, but the Agricultural Directorate in Hama, affiliated with the Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform, refused this change as the area is classified as agricultural land. Also, the Water Resources Directorate in Hama, affiliated with the Ministry of Water Resources, refuses the rezoning of the area because it sits within the government irrigation line project.

A home collapsed in Mashaa Al-Naqarneh in October 2021, killing two people. The Hama Governorate at the time simply warned residents of the danger and requested that they evacuate. It is worth noting that the Hama Governorate has dealt with Mashaa Al-Naqarneh according to Legislative Decree No. 40 of 2012, which concerns “building violations,” rather than as an area of informal settlement that may be addressed under any of the development or urbanisation laws in effect. Law No. 40 addresses construction code violations on an individual basis while issues related to informal neighbourhoods, on the whole, must be handled collectively in order to ensure property owners’ rights. Where Law No. 40 only grants owners of individual destroyed real estate properties the right to dispose of the debris, rights holders in informal neighbourhoods may register in alternative housing programmes or for organisational shares in the area after its rezoning.

Picture of the Al-Amal Suburb Plan

Source: SANA

In early December, the General Housing Establishment invited occupants of so-called “housing at risk of collapse” within Damascus’ Mazzeh 86 informal housing neighbourhood to choose alternative housing.

The housing units at risk of collapse, in this case, are 28 homes that were built in violation of construction codes. A landslide beneath them in 2017 threatened the homes’ structural integrity. The houses were then demolished in 2018, according to prior statements from the Directorate of Technical Services, which is part of the Damascus Governorate.

The governorate has leased the residents of these 28 demolished houses temporary housing in the Barzeh neighbourhood of Damascus. They were granted the right to apply for alternative housing under Prime Ministerial Approval No. 16699/1, issued in November 2019. Subscription took place within the youth housing project in the Qudsaya expansion zone with the understanding that the alternative housing units would be delivered no more than three years after allocation. The General Housing Establishment also required that residents benefitting from the alternative housing complete payments amounting to 50 percent of the properties’ value upon allocation.

Alternative housing is not free. Rather, it is among the government’s social housing programmes, which the General Housing Establishment implements, at a cost to beneficiaries. Allocating a housing unit to an applicant means drawing up a contract that is considered a title deed between the applicant and the General Housing Establishment. The deed includes the location and a description of the housing unit.

Landslides are frequent in the Mazzeh 86 neighbourhood due to the geological nature of the land, as well as non-compliance with construction codes. In 2019, the Damascus Governorate ordered the evacuation of a cracked five-storey housing block, fearing its collapse. It is unclear whether the governorate subsequently demolished the building or if residents were granted the right to apply for alternative housing. The Al-Maghar area of Mazzeh 86 also witnessed landslides in 2016. Earlier, in 2010, there was a landslide in the neighbourhood due to an underground cavity.

The Mazzeh informal housing neighbourhood is part of the broader Mazzeh area southwest of Damascus and began to appear in the late 1970s. Residents built informal homes on publicly owned property, some of which had been expropriated for the Ministry of Defence (this part was next to the 86th Battalion of the Defense Companies, which at the time was commanded by regime strongman Rifaat Al-Assad). Most residents of Mazzeh 86 are low-income Alawites from the Syrian coast who migrated to Damascus. Many of them work in the security services and army. In the 1990s, two security checkpoints were set up in the area to halt the spread of informally built housing, without success.

Granting the residents of the 28 demolished homes the right to apply for alternative housing was seen as an exception and contradicted the laws in place that handle informal housing and urban planning. These laws, including Decree No. 66 of 2012 and Law No. 10 of 2018, stipulate that residents of informal housing constructed on publicly owned land whose homes face demolition have only the right to rental compensation for two years in the best of cases. Residents may also benefit from the rubble of their demolished homes under Law No. 3 of 2018, which discusses the removal of rubble belonging to damaged houses.

In justifying the preferential treatment towards the residents of the 28 demolished homes in Mazzeh 86, the General Housing Establishment’s director of social housing called the matter “an emergency situation.” Others have not been so lucky – in November 2021, the Hama Governorate warned residents of the informal Al-Naqarneh neighbourhood of the potential collapse of their homes due to landslides and ordered them to immediately evacuate their houses. The governorate neither granted those residents temporary housing, nor allowed them to apply for an alternative housing programme. The Hama Governorate considered that its warning to residents relieved it of any responsibility for the outcomes of what may have subsequently happened.

“I feel angry and ashamed because my nephew invests in my land without recognising that I’m the owner,” says one forcibly displaced farmer from Kafr Zita, a town in the Rural Hama Governorate. He adds, “I never imagined that my nephew could treat me with such disdain.”

The story of this farmer, who was displaced to opposition-held parts of northern Syria, reflects wider political divisions within local families: between those opposed to the regime who were forcibly displaced from Kafr Zita and those loyal to the regime who still live in the town. There are similar family splits across rural northern parts of the Hama Governorate and the neighbouring southern Idlib Governorate, both areas now under regime control. It appears that Syrian authorities are intentionally playing on these divisions by encouraging loyalists to invest in farmlands belonging to their forcibly displaced relatives, as revealed by documents obtained by The Syria Report.

The General Secretariat of the Hama Governorate announced on October 21, 2021, that it would accept applications for such relatives to invest in the “Saliekh,” treeless lands, for one season, with preference given to first- to third-degree relatives who live in the area. First degree relatives include the father, mother, spouse, and children; second degree relatives include grandparents, siblings and grandchildren; and third degree relatives include uncles, aunts, nieces, and nephews.

The October announcement came on the heels of a circular from the Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform, Letter No. 588 dated August 21, 2021, and Letter No. 594 dated August 23, 2021, which contained a “Vacant Land Investment Action Plan.” The plan is set to be announced for agricultural investment in the 2021-22 season.

Investment by relatives in absentees’ lands, in addition to increased estrangement with displaced farmers, has encouraged disputes between relatives still living in regime areas, according to a local correspondent for The Syria Report. According to a letter issued by the Ministry of Agriculture dated October 23, 2021, the priority is to set up agreements between relatives to approve one of them to invest in an absentee family member’s land. In the absence of an agreement, the system for degree of kinship is employed.

In a special letter, No. 795 dated October 3, 2021, the Ministry of Agriculture indicated that these confiscated lands are included in normal public auctions and that the investments of relatives do not apply in such cases. “Confiscated” here usually refers to properties of regime dissidents accused of “terrorism” before the “Antiterrorism Court” or lands seized by militias loyal to the regime.

There are no cases in which the investor derives any financial benefit from their relatives; the investor only has priority through kinship to the landowner. If the absentee landowner has no relatives, or if nobody is interested in investing in the land, then the property is put up for public auction. Many forcibly displaced farmers appear to have agreed to allow their relatives to invest in such lands and to share the harvest. At the same time, the risk of public auctions have compelled some displaced farmers to return to their hometowns, causing some to face arbitrary arrest.