No. 82 THE INFORMAL HOUSING DEVELOPMENT PROCESS IN EGYPT Christian Arandel & Manal El Batran July 1997 Working Paper No. 82 THE INFORMAL HOUSING DEVELOPMENT PROCESS IN EGYPT Christian Arandel* & Manal El Batran** July 1997 *Christian Arandel **Manal El Batran Environmental Quality International 7 Abbas Hamza Street 3B, Bahgat Ali Street Nazlet El Batran Zamalek, Cairo, Egypt El Haram 12111, Giza, Egypt Tel: + 20 2 341 7879 Fax: + 20 2 341 3331 Fax: + 20 2 360 2800 E­Mail: [email protected] This Report was prepared for Centre Nacional de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), France, as part of a programme of research co­ordinated by Alain Durand­Lasserve, 7 Rue Sante Garibaldi, 33000 Bordeaux, France THE INFORMAL HOUSING DEVELOPMENT PROCESS IN EGYPT TABLE OF CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION 1 SECTION I: LAND MANAGEMENT AND HOUSING IN EGYPT: POLICY AND INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK 1.1 Land Management and Tenure Systems 3 1.2 Urban and Regional Planning in Egypt: Toward Spatial Decentralisation? 3 1.2.1 Housing Policies in Egypt 3 1.2.2 New Towns and New Settlements Policies 5 1.3 Institutional Framework: Toward Policy Decentralisation? 8 1.3.1 Institutions Involved in Urban and Regional Planning 8 1.3.2 Planning Process in Egypt 9 1.3.3 The Nature of the Relation Between the Central and Local Government 11 SECTION II: INFORMAL SETTLEMENTS IN EGYPT 13 2.1 Typology of Informal Settlements 14 2.1.1 Squatter Settlements 14 2.1.2 Informal Housing on Legally Owned Land 14 2.2 Main characteristics of Informal Settlements 14 2.3 Informal Housing Development: Constraints and Opportunities 16 2.3.1 The Informal Housing Markets 16 2.3.2 Main Constraints 18 2.3.3 Major Opportunities 18 SECTION III: INFORMAL SETTLEMENTS AND STATE INTERVENTION 19 3.1 The Main Causes of State Intervention 19 3.2 Evolution of the Legal Framework for Upgrading and Regularisation 20 3.3 Forms of settlement upgrading 21 3.3.1 Early Attempts at Regularising and Upgrading Informal Settlements 21 3.3.2 Upgrading through the Provision of Infrastructure 22 3.3.3 Rehabitation and Upgrading in El Mounira and Shubra 27 El Kheima CONCLUSION 29 BIBLIOGRAPHY 33 NOTES 34 List of Tables Table I: Residential units executed by the public and private sectors 4 Table II: Situation of housing units in the New Towns (1988) 6 Table IV: Average urban land values evolution in Egypt 1960­1983 (L.E./m2) 18 Table V: Average residential unit cost evolution, 1960­1983 (L.E./m2) 18 Table VI: Description of upgrading projects undertaken under the auspices of bilateral and multilateral donors 23 Table VII: Urban population in the governorate selected for upgrading administration 25 Table VIII: Budget for settlement upgrading by governorate 25 Table IX: Projected clearance of inner­city areas in Cairo and Giza 26 List of Maps Map I: New Towns in the Greater Cairo region 6 Map II: Location of Cairo's new settlements 7 Map III: Location of informal settlements in Cairo 13 Map IV: Urbanisation of agricultural land in Greater Cairo 17 Map V: Boundaries of Greater Cairo region 26 Map VI: Existing land use in El Munira 27 List of Figures Figure 1: Urban policy administration: functional structure 10 Figure 2: Schematic organisational structure for Central and Local Government and urban policy monitoring 12 Figure 3: Proposed policies according to land use 28 THE INFORMAL HOUSING DEVELOPMENT PROCESS IN EGYPT INTRODUCTION rate of 2.8%, meaning that one million persons were added to the country's population every nine months. Cities in developing countries face similar challenges Egyptian cities have received the bulk of this increase: in attempting to cope with the phenomenon of rapid the ratio of urban to total population grew from 26.4% urbanisation. Their ability to cope with such in 1937 to 37.5% in 1960, and 43.9% in 1986. Recent challenges is largely contingent upon their limited trends however indicate a gradual decrease of the resources and the institutional framework in which urbanisation rate as the percentage of Egypt's they operate. Social organisations, cultures, population living in urban centres grew only from administrative traditions, planning conventions and 43.8% to 43.9% between 1976 and 1986. This figure, political dynamics vary considerably from city to city, which indicates that urbanisation is now more or less and country to country, (Stren and White, 1989, and increasing at the same rate as the overall population is Stren, 1991). Egypt was a pioneer among developing confirmed by data showing a decrease in rural­urban countries in instituting a system of public migration. From 1976 to 1986 growth rates of cities administration whose changes over the ages reflect the have varied with population size: they have decreased country’s long and complex history. According to for cities over 100,000 inhabitants, slightly increased Valsan, (1990; p.131): “In modern times, three major for cities between 50 and 99,999 inhabitants, and events have had considerable impact on the decreased for smaller cities (El Kadi, 1990). Urbanis­ administration inherited by the free officers who came ation in Egypt is also characterized by very high to power in 1952: first The French Invasion under population densities. This is particularly true in Cairo, Napoleon; second, the rule of Turkish Viceroy the second most dense city in the world after Bombay, Mohammed Aly; and third, the British occupation of where average density is 172.7 persons per hectare. Egypt”. Two factors compound the effects of urbanisation and Before July 1952, Egypt was divided into 14 population growth in Egypt. First, this growth is provinces. Each province was headed by a high occurring on a small portion of the country's territory: central govern­ ment official, responsible to the of a total area of one million square kilometres no Minister of Interior. The desert regions were excluded more than 4% is inhabited. Second, population is from the civil administration and placed under the unevenly distributed between the various urban control of the Ministry of War. As Cairo did not have centres. Approximately 46% of the total urban the status of a municipality until 1944 (Waterbury population is concentrated in 4 cities, Cairo, 1973) public authorities were ill­equipped to Alexandria, Port Said and Suez, which cover a total effectively control land development at the city's area of 20,806 square kilometres. Meanwhile, the periphery. This contributed, from an early stage, to population of four other governorates (the Red Sea, El the growth and proliferation of uncontrolled urban Wadi El Gedid, Matrouh, Sinai) represent no more settlements. Moreover, Abu­Lughod (1980) reports than 1.5 % of the total urban population living in an that before 1952 Cairo had no housing policy and that area which is four times as vast (85,016 km2). As by 1965 the city only had a rudimentary land building population is concen­ trated on a very small, and code and law governing subdivision of land, and there fertile, part of the country, it is inexorably eating up were neither housing codes nor a general zoning precious agricultural land. ordinance. There were nonetheless some architectural codes in Cairo proper which dealt with restrictions on Informal urbanisation can be seen as a result of the buildings heights, setbacks, and health and safety of combination of the above factors (rapid and uneven the occupants. urbanisation, high population densities etc.) with the inability of the formal sectors to provide land and/or After the 1952 revolution, Egypt embarked on a phase housing adapted to the needs of the urban population of decentralisation. The Government established and particularly to its lower income segments. different administrative units called “Moderia” in which the central ministries were represented at the As a result of the lack of coordination between local level. These units had the full responsibility to concerned agencies and ministries, and of the use of formulate and implement the local urban policy. In different definitions and techniques in estimating 1960, the "Moderias" were replaced by the informal building activities it is hard to clearly governorates which received increased responsibilities delineate the scope of the informal housing sector in for local planning. Egypt. A construction industry study in 1981 (World Bank and GOHBPR) estimated that approximately The problems that this administration had to face were 77% of all housing units built nationally between daunting. Similar to most developing countries, Egypt 1966­1976 were informal. This estimate reflects the has been affected by a demographic explosion over the difference between the increase in housing units past forty years. Subsequently, its population rose from recorded by the 1966­1976 censuses and the increase 24 million in 1952 to nearly 50 million in 1986 and is in the number of building permits and registrations expected to reach more than 65 million by 2000, and over the same period. In contrast, a study on informal 90 million by 2025. In the 1980's population grew at a housing in 1982 (ABT Associates and GOHBPR) 1 estimated that informal units represented 84% and infrastructure increasingly ineffective and inefficient; 91% of all units built between 1970 ­ 1981 in Cairo the failure of “Sites and Services” approach to reach and Beni­Suef, respectively. the target group of the urban poor; and the limited effectiveness of the government's interventions to solve Moreover, estimates regarding the number of informal the problems of housing for the urban poor. Such settlements also tend to vary according to the source. factors impose to rethink approaches to urban A 1993 report (GOPP) estimated that there were 23 management in order to generate solutions adapted such settlements in the Greater Cairo Region to deal with contemporary urban problems.