Amendments to law on non-families housing ban referred to Fatwa dept
What will PAHW do with Sulaibiyah, Taima lands?
KUWAIT CITY, Sept 3: State Minister for Municipal Affairs Fahad Al-Shuala referred the proposed amendments to law No. 125/1992 that bans housing non-families in some residential areas to the Fatwa and Legislation Department for reviewing the legal draft, reports Al-Qabas daily.
In the first article of the amendments, Al-Shuala explained that when applying the provisions of this law, the following words and phrases will have the belowmentioned definitions:
A family is a group of individuals consisting of a husband and wife, their children and relatives up to the third degree or part of them, provided that they are not less than two persons. Kuwaiti widows above 40 years of age will be treated as family members by this law.
Private residential areas are defined as areas with light population density allocated for families to reside in houses established either by individuals or the private sector.
Defined
Model residential areas are defined as areas allocated for families to reside, and the state has distributed plots for this purpose as part of the housing welfare program.
The second article bans renting out residential units or part of them to non-families in the private and model residential areas.
Any contract or agreement made in contravention to the provisions of this law shall be terminated as soon as the law is enforced.
If houses have been rented to families either partially or completely, the owners of these house must provide a copy of the contract for approval by Kuwait Municipality after the contract is signed by the relevant mayor.
The third article states that all contracts and agreements in all forms signed before the enforcement of this law are in contravention of the provisions of article 2 of this law. The occupants of the violating units must leave the units within a period not exceeding six months from the date of enforcement of this law. The electricity shall be cut off from the violating unit in case the occupants do not evacuate within six months.
Director General of Kuwait Municipality has the right to issue an evacuation warrant, and the relevant employees can seek support from Ministry of Interior for executing the decision.
According to the fourth article, Public Authority for Civil Information (PACI) can refrain from registering and issuing civil cards to bachelors who stay in private and model residential areas except for domestic workers based on articles 12 and 14 of law No. 17/1959.
As per the law, violators who do not adhere to the regulations will be imposed fines ranging from KD 1,000 to KD 5,000 by both the owners and the tenants. If the violation is repeated, the fine value will be doubled, thus ranging from KD 2,000 to KD 10,000. Those who refrain from executing the evacuation decision will have to pay KD 20 for each day he remains in the unit illegally.
Meanwhile, the infrastructural project for low cost houses will be completed in 2021 while residents of Sulaibiyah and Taima will be moved to a new location latest by 2023, and unoccupied lands in Suliabiyah and Taima will be returned to the Public Authority for Housing Welfare, reports Al-Rai daily.
The above information is based on the vision of the Public Authority for Housing Welfare concerning low cost housing units. What will the authority do with the vacant lands in Sulaibiyah and Taima after 2024 should the authority fail to declare plans for those locations after evacuating the current dwellers?
The daily followed-up the low cost housing projects through trips with the Project Manager Engineer Mamdouh Al-Shammari, representative of the major contractor and several other concerned engineers. The works on those lands are going on steadily to ensure construction of 9800 housing units, as well as many investment buildings, public houses, vocational areas and storages. Those facilities and many other services have been conceived to be the nucleus of the housing projects along Salmi Road.
Engineer Al-Shammari informed that the project includes construction, completion and maintenance of 9800 units covering 200 square meters per unit, in addition to the construction of an irrigation reservoir with the capacity of 250,000 gallons and borehole to supply the reservoir. There will be 61 power plants having 4 transformers and 89 distribution plants.