Eviction notice: Final countdown

Happy days are over for residents sharing villas as authorities get ready to crack the whip on offenders, with no possibility of extension beyond the October 20 deadline.

One family affair

Dubai Municipality's ‘One Villa, One Family' campaign, however, will not be enforced in freehold areas as they are beyond the civic body's jurisdiction, said Engr Omar Mohammad Abdul Rahman, Head of the municipality's Building Inspections Section.

While speculation, rants and panic are rife among residents as the deadline looms, Abdul Rahman, who heads a team of 60 inspectors, said they are simply doing their job.

Here are excerpts of his exclusive interview with XPRESS.

Why did the municipality start this ‘One Villa, One Family' campaign?

Dubai Municipality planned the city and allocated certain areas for specific activities; residential areas, commercial areas, warehouses, industrial areas, labour accommodation etc.

For residential areas, the municipality made all the services and utilities, from water, electricity, sewage, waste management, even the roads and parking spaces, based on that plan.

From a long time ago the municipality has stipulated that the villa is to accommodate one family, be it the owner or a tenant.

In the last three years or so we have seen a boom in people seeking refuge in villas, because in villas you can easily make changes to the structure and add rooms and such, without obtaining the proper building permits, to accommodate more people.

These villas and houses have been used in ways that are illegal. Consequently, these actions create a wide range of hazards.

From an environmental and safety point, no building, be it a temporary or permanent structure, is built or a villa partitioned or any other construction work done without the prior approval of the municipality.

The villa is partitioned, in most cases additional kitchens and toilets are built. You can't have a villa with five or 10 families without building additions.

Each family wants their own kitchen or pantry, which means multiple gas cylinders in one area which is a safety hazard.

Also, most of these additions have been built using banned materials, such as asbestos whose use as a building material is illegal in the UAE.

Again, some partitions are built from wood, drywall and other flammable material, which is absolutely not allowed.

This is one of the reasons that led to the Naif fire, for example.

People cry out about human rights violations, but if they look closely they will see that this law actually does more to protect human rights, because we protect your health and safety from these imminent dangers.

Why is the municipality enforcing this now?

In previous years we have made sweeps of villas with bachelors and multiple families covering the entire emirate.

But as I said, recently there has been an increase in these violations. So we set out handing out warnings to tenants and landlords.

However, many people come to us and say that they didn't know, even though we have announced this earlier and informed landlords and real-estate companies and they all know about this regulation, anyone saying otherwise is just playing dumb.

Even then we decided to give them the benefit of the doubt and give everyone a 30-day grace period as a chance to get their things in order.

We were actually shocked to find out that a year after the last sweep, repeat offenders now have doubled the violations they had when we initially caught them.

Do you feel that the grace period is sufficient?

The period is enough for you to vacate and move. We can't wait for disaster to strike; most of these violations are putting people's lives at risk. We can't leave the situation as it is while people haggle over a suitable price. With regard to issues between tenants and landlords, these issues can be addressed to the Rent Committee to obtain a resolution.

Who decided on this 30-day time period and why?

The grace period of one month was applied because this is the standard time given to comply with the regulation once a violation has been recorded by an inspector; therefore it's based on our standard work process and procedure. This is regardless of issues of rental contracts or payments; these are issues that should be addressed to the Rent Committee.

Will the grace period be extended?

No, we have set this time so that everyone can comply with the law. The situation has reached its limit.

With rents on the rise, where are these people supposed to go?

This campaign is concentrating on villas; these residences are planned to accommodate one family. Once that threshold is crossed, we begin to see problems with the services and utilities. Even the garbage gets out of hand.

Go to any of these neighbourhoods and you'll see it, and these are the visible side effects.

Once a small area is overpopulated the environment and habitat begins to be affected by it.

Where do they go? They should go to the places where they are allowed to stay, they should go to buildings and apartments; these are all allowed for families and bachelors to stay in.

What do you say to those who feel that this campaign is a way to fill up empty apartments?

The municipality doesn't own any buildings or real-estate properties to fill with people.

Our main goal is to enforce the laws of the emirate and get people to comply with them. Our goal is not to build or fill properties; there is no benefit for us in doing that. As I said, a villa is only for one family.

But this campaign is creating a perception that you are targeting the middle- and low-income families.

Since starting the campaign we never looked at targeting middle- or low-income people. If you look at it closely you'll see that this is affecting landlords and owners as well.

For example, today the landlord rents out the villa to ten families or bachelors making Dh300,000, tomorrow he has to rent it to one family for Dh100,000. But as I said earlier, we do not take any financial issues into account in this section, this is totally out of our field and we do not address it.

Do you believe this campaign will help reduce villa rents in Dubai?

This is really not our goal. I'm not a property analyst or anything like that to be able to make such a conclusion. It may reduce, but I don't think I'm qualified to say anything like that.

There is a perception that this measure will help developers to fill up empty properties in freehold areas.

I don't think it will have that effect. I don't think that people who vacate these areas will resort to freehold properties. They will just comply with the law; they can go to areas that are regulated for bachelors; villas that had 10 families will have just one and those who can't afford that can go to apartments and such.

Why target families who may have children to care for?

It is not a matter of concentrating on families. We are addressing both families and bachelors.

It's true that most of the violations are caused by bachelors and they cause serious safety hazards, but families also have a number of violations which should be addressed.

Will this campaign cover gated communities and properties run by Emaar and Nakheel?

Freehold areas have their own inspection and security teams.

Areas that fall under our jurisdiction will be enforced by us, but areas belonging to Emaar and Nakheel and other developers have their own teams to enforce their regulations.

What are the areas that you will be concentrating on once the grace period ends?

We will cover the entire emirate, but we will start in areas that have a higher concentration of violations – Al Rashidiya, Al Jaffiliya, Abu Hail, Al Hamriya and Jumeirah 1 are some of the places that are overpopulated with shared villas and that's where we will begin the campaign.

Why not go after labourers living in cramped spaces in villas in Naif, surely they are a bigger safety threat?

We are focusing on these people, and we are working on demolishing houses that are not structurally sound.

These are commercial areas where bachelors are allowed to live. But in cases regarding overcrowded areas, we are aware of them and I have reports on about 400 such cases.

We have already sent out warnings and requests to cut the utilities and vacate the areas.

What kind of trouble will violators face?

We are prepared to use everything, within the limits of the law, to get people to stop these violations – from cutting off utilities to suspending the business licence of real estate companies and landlords. We will take action accordingly.

Bottomline

• Bachelors are not allowed to live in villas
• Only one family per villa is the rule
• Cousins or extended family members are not allowed
• Emiratis are not exempted from the crackdown. Nationality has nothing to do with the municipality's campaign