‘No licence for new buildings issued since recent building bylaw went into effect’

AMMAN — None of the country’s housing developers has had a single licence issued to start a new building since the building bylaw went into effect at the beginning of May, President of the Jordan Housing Developers Association Zuhair Omari said.

“None of the country’s 3,400 housing companies has had a licence issued from the Greater Amman Municipality (GAM) to start a new building, in protest to the building bylaw… we were promised that the bylaw would be changed, but nothing has happened so far,” he told The Jordan Times on Thursday.

The country’s housing firms have voiced their rejection of the building bylaw and said they are determined not to get any licences for new buildings until the bylaw is revisited, Omari explained.

“A meeting is expected to be held soon under the umbrella of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs where the bylaw will be discussed and we hope that the discussions will be serious and that the bylaw will be changed,” Omari said.

Last month, the housing investors held a strike to protest the bylaw while dozens of other investors cancelled their orders to purchase steel, cement and other construction materials.

The bylaw stipulates that housing apartments must be at least 110sqm in categories B, C and D, and 130sqm if classified in A zones, which, according to housing developers, would limit buyers’ options.

Under the bylaw, housing developers cannot build small apartments anymore, although the demand in the market is on apartments that are smaller than 120sqm, according to Omari, who said that the bulk of the demand is for apartments of 90 and 80sqm.

According to the association, 32 per cent of Jordanians who bought apartments in 2017 chose ones that were smaller than 120sqm.

Trading in the real estate sector declined by 7 per cent in the first quarter of 2018 to JD1.399 billion compared with JD1.505 billion during the same period last year.

The sector, which employs tens of thousands of Jordanians, has been witnessing slow business since 2015. The total value of apartments that have been built since 2015 to date and have not been sold yet is estimated at JD1 billion, according to the sector leader.