JEDDAH, 6 August 2007 — City authorities have classified 48 areas around Jeddah containing dilapidated structures that need repair or demolishing, according to an official at the Jeddah Municipality.
Mohammed Ajaj, head of a committee reviewing the state of old buildings in the city, said that the municipality was now using the latest Geographic Information System (GIS) to locate decrepit structures around the city and create a databank to organize demolition and renovation plans.
He said that the current cleaning company had been assigned with supervision from an architecture company (he didn’t say which) to remove debris from demolished structures in the city’s historic downtown.
He added that structures that can be renovated would be worked out with the help of traditional craftsmen, who would also work under the supervision of the architecture company.
“The work team has started removing the ruins of demolished structures in the historical area,” he added.
Ajaj said his department had demolished and cleaned the ruins of around 45 buildings and structures in Al-Sabeel district to the south of the downtown, as part of a project to widen the roads in the area. He claimed that the project helped in reducing traffic congestions caused by a lack of structural planning in the neighborhood.
The official said the municipality had been working hand-in-hand with civil defense authorities to check and analyze dilapidated structures in addition to locating owners of abandoned structures that were in bad condition to finalize their demolition procedures as fast as possible.
Last November, Jeddah Mayor Adel Fakieh revealed plans to establish a state-owned real estate development company to spruce up the city’s randomly developed districts at an initial cost of SR210 billion ($56 billion).
Fakieh said there were about 50 randomly developed districts around Jeddah covering an area of 534,000 square meters and inhabited by 1.5 million people. These districts have been developed willy-nilly during Jeddah’s rapid urbanization in the past 30 years, in many cases with commercial and residential buildings erected side by side with little consideration for efficient zoning or residential safety concerns.
