Iraq.. Will vertical construction solve the housing problem in Baghdad? | Economy

Aljazeera.net correspondents

Baghdad- The population of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, has doubled to exceed 9 million people, according to official statistics linked to the ration card. This has caused real estate prices to rise many times over due to the increased demand for housing and apartments.

In light of these conditions, the idea of ​​vertical residential complexes emerged, which many bet on to solve the housing crisis in the capital, but it created other crises that directly harmed the environmental situation and the appearance of the capital.

Projects and Challenges

“It is good to see investments in the housing sector, but at the same time other problems have come to the fore as a result of the absence of a mechanism through which the complexes can be controlled by returning to the Investment Authority,” says human rights activist Nectal Abdul Hassan.

Abdul Hassan added in an interview with Al Jazeera Net that “Baghdad includes more than 46 city projects and residential complexes, including the Iraq Gate, Zahraa Al Saydiya Complex, Al Naseem, and other companies.”

He believes that there are many challenges facing the investment law, which provides facilities for investors by providing land by the state, in addition to granting tax and customs exemptions and other facilities.

He explained that all these facilities and steps did not achieve their desired goal, and he provided evidence of this by the existence of randomness in the distribution of these projects and the high prices of apartments.

Abdul Hassan stressed that “the main problem lies in the influence of parties and politicians through creating networks to facilitate transactions for some projects and not others, which is a negative thing that has led to investors fearing working inside Iraq.”

From houses to cantons

For her part, environmental activist Aya Al-Saedi wondered about the usefulness of vertical construction and residential complexes in solving the housing crisis in Iraq.

She told Al Jazeera Net: “The latest statistics from the Ministry of Planning indicate that the population of Iraq has reached 42 million people, and this has created a housing crisis and led to a new phenomenon represented by the division of large houses into smaller houses that do not exceed 50 square metres in area.”

Al-Saedi said, “All these conditions have greatly affected the green space due to horizontal construction after agricultural plots were exploited for residential purposes,” adding that this situation has led to an increase in the rate of pollution.

She added: “All successive governments have not found radical solutions to the housing crisis, unlike what the new government has come up with by presenting several projects and solutions.”

She added that “the modern urban projects – 4 out of 5 that were approved – include a total of approximately 200,000 housing units,” considering that “the main problem today for the citizen is the high prices of these apartments, in addition to his refusal to live in such complexes.”

Companies without money take over projects

For his part, businessman Ali Al-Rubaie pointed out that there are companies on the ground that carry official papers but do not have money and seize tenders and loans without implementing projects. He also spoke about the fact that citizens with limited income cannot get the opportunity to purchase a residential apartment in these complexes.

Al-Rubaie told Al Jazeera Net, “The price per square metre in these apartments ranges between $1,500 and $2,500, and therefore those who benefit from these complexes are those with high incomes and politicians. These apartments have also become an easy way to launder money.”

For her part, Taiba Al-Qaisi, head of the Taiba Tour organization, considered that vertical construction has advantages, as it reduces spaces for the purpose of construction and gathers services in one place, but this type of construction poses many problems related to high prices and the acquisition of such projects of areas within cities, which greatly harmed the appearance of the capital.

Al-Qaisi said: “These complexes have negatively affected green areas by clearing large areas of trees to provide space for construction.”

For his part, citizen Omar Adnan confirmed that “the negatives of the residential complexes are more than their positives, including distorting the appearance of the capital, in addition to the high cost of these apartments, which has deprived the lower classes of citizens of even dreaming of owning them.”