Final Research
For Sociology of Urbanism
The Housing Module in Palestine - Nablus Cause study
Under Supervision of: Dr. Maarten Loopmans
By : Shafeeq A. Bara
2nd semester -the year 2008-2009
Introduction :
To speak about a unified housing module in Palestine is not a realistic matter , as Palestine went through the last century in a very hard and rapid changing political situations , this short research will try to focus on the housing module in the city of Nablus during the last century in the deferent political periods that the city passed through , as Nablus is one of the main Palestinian cities in the west bank and was considered until the last intifada as the main economical base for the Palestinians , and it also had a very incent history with great legacy and building traditions that insisted to build in stone since ever .
Nablus back in History :
The housing module in Palestine & especially Nablus have changed a lot since the beginning of the 20 century , for thousands of years before the module of building in Nablus which was one of the major cities in historical Palestine continued to be a tradional middle eastern urban context , and at the late Turkish Othman empire period you can see the image of very tradional Arab Islamic city with its narrow Alleys , overlapping buildings , Mosques , churches and a big roofed bazaar .
Nablus buildings were build in tradional way from white stone and the houses formed like small complexes for each extended family , where a group of houses and sometimes rooms each of them for a small family ( father , mother & their children ) where build around a small courtyard or a private allay called Hoosh , rich family had a better houses with bigger courtyards s sometimes a courtyard for each family
A photo from the Sky for the city Back in 1918 , after the British occupation , Source : http://www.nablus.gov.ps
The first political period – the British mandate 1918-1948 :
by the beginning of the British occupation for Palestine so called mandate , the tradional way of building suddenly came to an end , as the British army saw that this kind of building system and cities form a real danger at their soldiers , a demonized space impossible to control especially after the revolution in the cities of Jafa & Jenin , and in the name of modernity and security the British authorities issued a series of laws that concern the building policies in Historical Palestine under the British Mandate like the laws of the years 1920 , 1936, 1947 . [1]
This formed the first stage of change in the hosing module , when the city start to expand rapidly in the out skirts of the old district , the new hoses was mostly build by the rich families to form a separate houses & villas , surrounded by a relatively big walled gardens , and that was available even to the high middle class as there was plenty of sheep vacant land around the city ,
A photo from the Sky for the city Back in 1948 , few days before the end of the British occupation , Source : http://www.nablus.gov.ps
The Jordanian control period 1948 -1967 :
The previous housing module continued during the Jordanian control period in the city ( 1948- 1967) , but it was not only the rich people who started to built out the old district , as many families from the law middle class started to build in the southern out skirts of the city , forming a high dense neighborhood called Rass Al Ain , and as the city lies in the narrow valley between tow mountains the city started to take a linear formation heading in the western and eastern direction , during this period all the building process stayed almost in the tradional way which depend in the manual work even new building materials like reinforced concrete was used .
A photo from the Sky for the city Back in 1967 , Source : http://www.nablus.gov.ps
The Israeli occupation period :
By the year 1967 the year were Nablus become under the Israeli occupation , the size of the city have grown to 5 or 6 time bigger than it was back in 1918 with a network of car roads that connect each side of the city with the other , a new policy was set by the occupation governors to limit the growth of Nablus , by applying a master plan for the city that but invisible borders to the city in addition to establishing settlements and industrial zones in the expected directions of the future expansion for the city with a network of military check points & posts to control it ,
This lead eventually to a speed increases in the land prices , smaller piece of land became available to each house ( in the beginning of the 1960 the average piece of land for each house was between 1000 – 2000 m2 those days the average size of each piece of land is around 500 m2 ) , and even the existing gardens surrounding the houses began to decreases by the additions and expansions on the buildings , new rooms floors and apartments were added to form a new extended family house , where the father and his sons live in one piece of land .
Side of Nablus back in the year 1950 , were you can see the small separated houses surrounded by gardens and walls , Source: http://www.nablus.gov.ps
The individual houses and the extended family houses and buildings , from white stone surrounded by the minimum size of walled gardens ( the garden size became exactly in the size of the space that the building laws force the people to let between two nearby buildings ) continued to be the dominant housing style in Nablus as the Nabulses believed that the best investment in their life time is to build your own house , the House in Palestine is a sacred and very important thing in the social life , and to own your house with its own garden planted with olives grapes and roses is what every man dream ,
So the private investment was the only engine to the housing market in Palestine , especially in Nablus where it was very hard and rear to find someone how accept to sell his house or even to rent it to others , the house in Nablus were built to last not only for the life time of his owner but also for his children and even his grand children , and only in few causes you can find someone how is willing to build more than one house in his life time as he invest all what he owns some times in his only house and tries to finish it in the best way .
But that was going to change in few years of time , by the change in the economical module in the city to a wider based economy , where new economical sectors and social activities was established like the biggest Palestinian university in the late 1970s and big services companies , the thing that attracted many Palestinians from other cities and villages come and settle in the city , by the beginning of the 1980s new & small residential towers were established for the first time by individual investors , in the beginning all those how come to live in those apartments saw this condition as temporary and so no buddy think in buying those apartments , and everyone was renting in those towers of 7-8 stories , (10 to 16 apartments per each building ) .
A photo for the central part of Nablus looking toward the east taken from AIR , in the year 1994 , Source : http://www.nakbaonline.org/images/LandBtwn/Nablus-1994.jpg
The Palestinian Authority period 1193 -2009 :
The previous module of housing continued tell the year 1993 , by the establishing of the Palestinian authority after Oslo agreement with the occupation government , even this agreement made a very big economical expansion in the city were many national big companies , factories & institutes chose the city as their main center ,and the number of citizens in the city and governorate increased by a big percentage , but the city size was almost fixed and the expansion was limited .
even between the years 1994 & 2001 there was a huge investment in building sector for commercial and housing purposes , that was due to the agreement that divided the Palestinian territories in the west bank to deferent areas with deferent authorities (A,B, C) where the Palestinian authorities cant issue a building permit except In area A & B which is mainly the built urban context of the Palestinian cities and villages , without any land for further expansion ,
And that lead to a very quick raze in land prices inside the city of Nablus , and a new housing module started where private investors , deferent associations ( engineers , doctors , teachers , etc.) ,or even groups of friends started a wave of investment in residential towers , with apartments to live in , those apartments became as the only affordable way to have a house for your own for the majority of the middle class people & that also was due to the great increase in the building cost , and the fixed wages for the employees especially the government employees who form a big sector in the middle class .
Those Residential towers almost spread everywhere in Nablus , every tower usually 8 to 16 floors ,with two to five apartments in the floor , one stair case with an elevator , with a favored size of 120 – 160 m2 for a 3 bed rooms , and most of the time have no play grounds or gardens around it .[2]
Side of the city back in 2008 , Source: http://www.westbanktours.com/sitebuilder/images/nablus-517x341.jpg
By the destruction that happened to the urban context with this mushroom towers growing everywhere which even affect the privacy of the nearby buildings and the massive problems in the building laws , a wave of investment in new small neighborhoods ( within the few available areas left in A&B of Oslo agreement ) where the project founder put special laws to the project like those how by the land plots can't build a tower and they only can build a 2 floors villa , which was seen a good opportunity for the high middle class & the rich one to have the house of life .
Fears & problems of house owners and investors :
Maybe the biggest fear all around historical Palestine is the collective punishment used by the Israeli occupation against Arab Palestinians , like lately they issued a military order in Jerusalem to destroy a complete Arab residential district of around 80 buildings even it had the right building permission to change the area into a national park as they claim ,
this policy is used even in Nablus where the occupation army policy in demolishing the house of the family of any Palestinian how join a military action against them , and also the destruction and demolishing of houses during the raids and invasions to the city to arrest the resistance members.
The demolishing of 8 stories residential tower of Nablus back in 2003 , source : http://www.pchrgaza.org/images/2003/weekly34.jpg
During the last 9 years hundreds of houses were partially or totally destroyed , among them at least four residential towers with 10 – 20 families in each were totally demolished .[3]
The second problems is the Land ownership system and the Bureaucracy in it , were moving the owner ship of the land or an apartment takes Avery long time and costs also a lot , so most of the contracts between the previous owners and the new owners are contracts with authorization to the new owner to resell or build in the land and to deal in the matters of the real estate department instead of the first one , and sometimes you can see a series of contracts for one piece of land , which make it hard sometimes to know the owner of the land whose name is still registered in the real estate department .
Another fear is the investor capability to finance the project and to finish it in the right time , as most of the time individual investors start the project with inefficient financial means , hoping to sell a big part of the project and taking advanced payments from the costumers to complete the work , and if they failed to sell enough apartments or part of the customers fail to pay their cheeks in the right time , the project will stop , and sometimes stuck for a long time.
This happens also in the housing associations mostly formed of employees , and due to the high percentage from their wages that they are forced to bay each month , and after a few months many of them couldn’t continue in paying and a gain the project will stuck and some time it takes years and years to finalize it , ( like in the cause of Iskan Alzhra Housing association for teachers in Nablus where the project started back in the year 1993 and it still not finished yet as the work is very slow .
The big companies intervention in the real estate sector in Nablus is very limited as it's also hard to have a bank financing to the project due to the high mortgage and the big problems and gaps in the real estate laws ,
And also the high prices of real estates , were an average finished and ready to use square meter is around 400 Euros which is over the average monthly salary for an employee in the government sector , and if we calculate the price of those apartments with the average of 120m2 , it will be like a full employee salary for 12 years , and that is very hard to afford without the help of the extended family , as most of the owners insist in cash payments and if they accept to sell the apartments in installments they will ask for a minimum 35% cash money , and the rest must be paid in maximum 5 years of time by heavy monthly installments , [4]
so many people by the apartments without any kind of finishing where the price for the square meter drop to around 180 -220 euro's and only after the finish the payments the start to finalize the apartment 9( most the time they don’t think to by one except after a long term saving process with the help of the parents and extended family ) .
Another fear from the investors and owners is to rent the apartment for others for two reasons , the first that the rents in Palestine are not connected with the inflation percentage , and after a few years the rent they receive will be too little so they mainly ask for high rents , the second problem is the Bureaucracy in Judicial system that it will take some times 4-5 years to have a judgment against a renter how could easily not pay the rent all this time , and sometimes the owners try to Compromise with the renter gust to leave without paying anything from the last two or three years rent .
Conclusion :
The change in the housing module in Nablus was a quick rapid change , and due to many political & economical reasons , the quality of life inside those housing module is also decreasing , and the housing owner ship is not affordable to more and more social and economical sectors , as the prices keep going up ant the income is going down .
New laws and legislation must be issued to insure a better private sectors investments in the housing sector , and the mortgage rates must be lowered , banks and financial groups must help financing the real estate sector.
And the government must intervene directly in the social housing sector as only few projects were made by the government in this direction and they are not even for the poor families but for the low middle class , Also the building laws must be modified to insure a better housing quality , and to reduce the concentration of high density residential areas.
The end
[1] D. Moslim Abu Helo , The challenges of development in the province of Jerusalem- In
the absence of national housing policies and strategies, Research , Al-Quds university,
14/1/2008
[2] Palestine housing council , year 2007 data analyses , http://www.phc-pal.org/index.html
[3] Un known author ,Nablus city, http://www.nakbaonline.org/ , 2008
[4] From a meeting with abu alroh kalbounh , one of the main investors in Nablus housing sector .5/2008
