Al-Monitor: The housing crisis in Iraq is causing thousands of acres of agricultural land to be bull

[size=52]Al-Monitor: The housing crisis in Iraq is causing thousands of acres of agricultural land to be bulldozed[/size]

[size=45]Translation/ Hamid Ahmed[/size]
[size=45]During his visit to the city of Bismayah, 40 km southeast of the capital, Baghdad, on June 19, Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kazemi announced that a sufficient sum had been secured to complete the implementation of a project to construct 100,000 housing units. The South Korean company Hanwha Engineering and Construction is implementing the Basmaya residential project, and only 35,000 housing units have been completed so far.[/size]
[size=45]The Iraqi Council of Ministers voted last week to establish the city of Rafael, in the area around Baghdad International Airport, which will include hundreds of thousands of housing units in eight different areas.[/size]
[size=45]On June 10, Al-Kazemi announced a national plan for distributing land plots and housing loans for the construction of homes, with the introduction of an advanced digital registration mechanism to implement the project.[/size]
[size=45]This project is an urgent step to curb the escalating housing crisis in Iraq, which was further exacerbated by the significant increase in the number of people in the country, which is estimated to reach 50 million people by 2030.[/size]
[size=45]In a clear picture of the housing problem in Iraq, the Ministry of Planning announced on November 5 that there are 3.5 million Iraqis living in slums and slums across the country. This figure is equivalent to 10% of the country's population of 40 million. The governorates of Baghdad, Basra and Nineveh have the largest number of these slums.[/size]
[size=45]A member of the Parliamentary Services and Construction Committee, Abbas Al-Atafi, told Al-Monitor that the huge number of citizens who do not have homes is causing a serious social crisis. He added, "Al-Kazemi's project by distributing plots of land to those who deserve it and establishing residential communities on the outskirts of cities contributes to alleviating the risk of the crisis."[/size]
[size=45]Because of the scarcity of housing units, lands intended to be agricultural are being leveled with the aim of converting them into residential neighborhoods. In Baghdad alone, during the year 2020, about 12 sites of agricultural properties were bulldozed for the construction of housing projects.[/size]
[size=45]According to officials in the Ministries of Agriculture and Justice, during the year 2018, at least 10,000 agricultural acres, approximately 10 million square meters, were settled and converted into residential land.[/size]
[size=45]For his part, Member of Parliament, Ali Al-Budairi, justified the bulldozing of agricultural land for residential purposes, under the pretext of the lack of land designated for housing. He said that the migration of most residents of rural areas that lack services to cities has caused the spread of residential slums. Al-Budairi questioned the success of a land distribution plan near city centers in resolving the housing crisis, saying, "The solution lies in curbing the issue of immigration and allocating a plot of land for each person living in a village."[/size]
[size=45]The housing crisis in Baghdad in particular, led to the establishment of vertical housing complexes, including the city of Bismayah.[/size]
[size=45]Farhad Alaeddin, head of the Iraqi Advisory Council, spoke about the bureaucracy and political interests that hinder the entry of international companies into the housing sector in Iraq. He stressed, "Investing in housing projects is very important to the Iraqi economy. However, a large number of investors feared entering the market in Iraq.[/size]
[size=45]Adviser to the Prime Minister for Investment and Reconstruction Affairs, Sabah Abdul Latif Mushtat, spoke about the details of the residential land distribution project. He stressed that the distribution includes all Iraqis, with housing priority given to widows and victims of war, terrorism and protests, as well as those covered by the Social Welfare Law.[/size]
[size=45]Regarding the technical details, Mushtat said that an electronic portal will be launched in the coming days. Every citizen who does not have a housing unit can submit a request through the portal, according to a system of information points, after revealing his social and economic position.[/size]
[size=45]He added, "The Ministry of Housing and Construction will prepare plans for residential houses, so that the beneficiary can choose the design for construction after obtaining the land, according to the number of his family members." The mortgage bank or housing fund will finance the housing loans. The Central Bank doubled its financing for the housing sector to more than 1 trillion dinars.[/size]
[size=45]On April 1, the Ministry of Housing and Construction approved the basic design of the Al-Tariq residential site in Baghdad, as well as designs for new housing sites in Baghdad, Basra, Najaf, Wasit, Diyala and Anbar governorates.[/size]
[size=45]Abdul-Zahra Al-Hindawi, a spokesman for the Ministry of Planning, said, “There is a wide gap in the housing sector in Iraq, estimated at 3 million housing units. But there is a possibility of success in controlling this crisis. The housing sector in Iraq is a sector thirsty for development and can absorb a lot of investments in this field, whether it is local investments by the private sector or foreign investments.”[/size]
[size=45]Hindawi said that the new plan will not include distributing lands randomly, but through urban planning based on the establishment of new residential neighborhoods with the provision of services in them. He stressed, “The contexts of the plan are to compel citizens to build a housing unit on the land they receive. Preparations for the implementation of this project are in place by all concerned parties, including the Ministry of Housing, banks and financing partners.”[/size]
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