A LEGAL HISTORY OF DALIEH

Defines what is coastal public property in Lebanon and is still in effect today. Categorizes the sea as public maritime domain that, according to Article 2, reaches up to the furthest high-water point on the coast. States that the public has a right to access all natural resources, including the sea.

The Beirut Master Plan introduces the zoning still in place today. Dalieh falls in Zone 10. All construction is forbidden along the coast.

Amends the regulations for Zone 10, creating four sections with varying degrees of building allowed. The northernmost part of Dalieh is put in Section III, where no construction “of any kind” is allowed and “it is also prohibited to change or alter the natural landscape.” The rest of Dalieh is put in Section IV, which can be used for “sporting, maritime, swimming, entertainment and restaurant activities,” with a 15 percent surface exploitation ratio (relationship between total land and ground property size) and a 20 percent general exploitation ratio (relationship between land and total property size, including all floors).

Allows owners of property by the sea to legally exploit the public maritime for the first time if the project is approved by the government and contributes to the tourism and industrial sectors of the economy. Includes a stipulation that 25 percent of the private property should be given to the municipality for public use. Excludes Zone 10 of the Beirut Master Plan.

Annuls the ban on exploitation of Zone 10’s public maritime domain, as well as the requirement that 25 percent of the development should be given to the municipality. Paves the way for the Mövenpick Hotel to be built (2000– 2002) just south of Dalieh. Never published in the Official Gazette, say activists, a requirement for all legislation.

Enables owners of more than 20,000 square meters of land who want to build a hotel to double their general exploitation ratio and quadruple their surface exploitation ratio. In Section III of Zone 10, which covers Dalieh, this means the exploitation ratios for large property owners become 40 percent and 60 percent respectively. Although it expired in 2000, it was renewed for 19 years in 2014.

Reconfirms the right of owners of property by the sea to privately exploit the public maritime domain in Zone 10.

Reasserts right of every Lebanese citizen to free and open access to the seashore. year. “Then I put myself in their shoes. Maybe if I were one of them, I would [have accepted the deal]. They live on [LBP] 20,000 [$13.33] a day; it was the deal of their life.”

He leans back in his chair with a sigh. “All fishermen, their stories between each other, [are all about] are you going to find the pearl today? In the end they found a pearl, but it was not in the form they were hoping for.”

Khalil (full disclosure: he occasionally represents Executive in legal matters) believes he was on the cusp of winning a case to allow the families to stay in Dalieh when, the night before the final appearance before the Court of Urgent Matters, his clients received calls offering them money to drop the suit and move elsewhere. All of them accepted.

Khalil says that his clients were offered around $3 million, while a fisher still living in Dalieh estimated that around 11 families — possibly including others not represented by Khalil — were given on average $500,000 each. This tallies with the figure provided by the landowners’ representative, who said more than $5 million was paid out in total.

One of the families that accepted the deal was the Itani family, whose houses were bulldozed, several members of which are now angling for more compensation by refusing to leave Dalieh. Because of this, Khalil says, they are not pressing charges over the demolition of their homes.

Khalil’s case rested on one central tenet: that the fishers’ homes lay in public maritime domain, defined by Article 2 of Order 144 (1925) as reaching up to the furthest high-water point on the coast. That order, still in effect today, dictates that this public domain cannot be bought or sold and also rules that the public has a right to access all natural resources, such as the sea.

“To cement this argument, we delivered to the court some old judgments issued by criminal courts in Beirut fining the fishers for building on public property,” Khalil says with a smile. “This was in the ‘70s and ‘80s ... we still have the receipt proving that [the fishers] paid them.”

The counterargument of the lawyer representing the landowners, who served eviction notices to the nine families in October 2013, relied on a map showing that ownership of all the land in dispute fell to his clients.

So far only one man has successfully managed to challenge this narrative: a lawyer named Dany Moussa who owns a warren-like large wooden shack built onto the sides of Dalieh’s southern cliffs, right by the Mövenpick hotel. According to Khalil, he argued that he was on public property and managed to stop the structure being destroyed, as well as safeguard the road leading to it. Moussa did not respond to repeated requests for an interview.

AGITATORS

Since the issuance of the 1954 Beirut Master Plan, which prohibited any construction along the coast, a series of laws have been passed to claw back landowners’ rights to develop that seadrenched part of Dalieh, historically a gathering point for swimmers, fishers and families alike.

Passed in 1966, Decree 4810 allowed those who own property adjacent to the sea to privately exploit the public maritime domain for the