Maspero triangle analysis (descriptive paper) By Omar Roshdy/Yasser Assaf

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Maspero Triangle Analysis

Sustainability in Urban Form

Semester Project

Maspero's Triangle Analysis

Presented To: Dr. Aly El Faramawy

Presented By: Omar Samy Roshdy

Yasser Assaf

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Introduction

March 2013 has witnessed big protests followed by a sit-in in front of the TV &

Radio building “Maspero” in Cairo’s downtown, the protest that made the whole

media at that time refer to, in addition many talk shows began to set up on air phone

calls between those footpads and the governor and his deputy. The broadcaster got

the governor’s deputy, General Seif Al Islam on air; greeting him and reporting the

current situation, that the residents of Maspero triangle “Bolaq Abu Al Ela” are

blocking the way down and they want their demands to be fulfilled, as they claim

that the former governor “Abdel Qawi Khalifa” gave them promises and none of the

spoken words were done. Quickly the Deputy Governor answered that he attended

all the previous meetings with the former governor and that they settled on keeping

the people in their place, in the same area of Maspero triangle and that “64”

buildings will be built to accommodate those people. He completed, this area is

under development; so any costs the government will not afford it, only the new

investors and owners will afford all the costs of the new projects and the new

buildings for Maspero people. He ended up by saying that in their meetings the

Governor permitted the residents to renovate their homes with the aid of engineers

from the neighborhood and that the government doesn’t own any land in the area.

The broadcaster wanted to mess with the Deputy and told him that they complain of

being ignored, the Deputy interrupted his words and answered that they met the

people many times, sat up meetings and our doors are wide open at anytime, they

or their representatives will come to me and we will discuss.

The broadcaster had an intervention on air with a member from MYA (Maspero

Youth Association), the member didn’t deny the general’s words but he asked for a

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real action, not just promises, as they took lots of previous promises, but none of

them were made or even was formally mentioned by the government, rather than

the typical relievers. The Deputy repeated the same words about the “65” buildings

and ended the call by setting up a meeting with the MYA representative the day

after.

Interviews from the protests were made by the reporters asking a typical protest

question, why are you here and what are your demands? All the people there had

different answers but all under the same umbrella of staying in the area of Maspero

and saving them from houses collapses, some wanted the governmental plan for the

64 building and others wanted to renovate their houses even if on their cost. It was a

mix between threatening, calling for help and being afraid to die under their houses

or to be forced to leave to another place/left in streets. "No for relocation, yes for

development" “ال للتهجير نعم للتطوير” that was the sign people of Maspero raised on

that day; what provoked them is that the Governor ordered to relocate some street

vendors to be put in a land on Bolaq’s area border, and totally ignoring the houses

that collapse every now and then so they went angry why aren’t you letting us to

renovate our houses or why aren’t you building us the 64 towers? In the era of a new

elected regime of the MB, people wanted to take their rights by any means especially

when the police presence was lacking after the 25th of January revolution.

Research Problem

More than 16 million Egyptians live in inhumane conditions, while more than six

million formal housing units have been reported vacant; housing advocates warn that

slum crisis could get worse. Inhabitants are forced to live in inhumane settlements,

because of the severe shortage of affordable housing in the cities, suffer from lack of

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electricity and sewage services, and are subjected to mistreatment by the state,

including regular forced evictions.

The fact that the government is bound by Egypt's new constitution, which is only

protecting legitimate private ownership, means that informal settlements will never

be recognized by the government and that slum inhabitants will be subjected to the

same treatment they received from the previous regime.

Research Objective

As mentioned in the research problems, the government will never recognize

the slum inhabitants, we acquire to document and guide the inhabitant's needs in

the slums area, in order to achieve part of the study, to shed more light on the

idea and focus on the slum area inhabitants.

As in this research, choosing Maspero square or Traingle is a challenge as it is

the heart of the city center, surrounded by iconic buildings (Radio & Television

Building, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ramsis Hilton). In addition, there are few

iconic and dominant architectural buildings in this area to be preserved, and the

government has a plan to modify this area by demolishing it to turn it into an

administrative hub in Cairo, selling land plots to private sectors.

Methodology

However, protests and sit-ins mean that there are some problems –mainly socially

most of the time- so that protests and the previous one (a year earlier) were a

normal result to what was going on in that mysterious triangle , that’s what we have

concluded.

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After digging deeper and interviewing some of the main stakeholders of Maspero

area as listed below:

Residents

Local land owners (residential units/ shops/ workshops)

Local tenants (residential units/ shops/ workshops)

Local representatives (Maspero Association to Defend the Land & Housing/ Maspero

NGO/ Bulaq Abo El Ela Local Committee/ Maspero Youth Association)

Surrounding neighborhood

The public

Governments

Ministry of Information

Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Ministry of Antiquities

Ministry of Planning

Ministry of Awqaf

Informal Settlement Development Fund (ISDF)

Investors

Kuwait co.

Maspero co.

Saudi co.

After a quick survey in the area, we found that the most powerful stakeholders

were represented in MYA (Maspero Youth Association), the residents, the investors’

companies (Kuwait Company had the biggest share among them) and the

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governments. So we managed to try to talk and interview each of those parties

separately, trying to figure out the whole true story behind those protests.

Any slum community like Bolaq has its own character and its own sustainable life

style whether social (the biggest share) or economic or environmental; those

parameters change from one place to the other depending on the types of problems,

here Bolaq is located in Cairo’s downtown in a very significant area with a

magnificent water front near Tahrir square, behind the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,

Maspero media tower and Hilton Ramses hotel. It is a very old area, Upon surveying

the houses age we found that the oldest one stands since 1890 and the newest are

since the 40ies, the total area of Bolaq is around 68 feddans inhabited by 19,000

residents distributed on three sectors. On wandering in the streets of Bolaq you will

find that the people are simple and poor and that they earn their living from almost

anything, despite the presence of lawyers, teachers, accountants, etc. the majority

has a vocation (builders, plumbers, mechanics, etc.) and others just work inside the

area on serving others (clothes washing, small kiosks, food vending, etc.). Streets are

narrow and paved with hexagonal interlocking blocks / paved for vehicular passing

for the mechanics workshops and main streets, short historical buildings of 2-3

stories are the most common there, as well as the collapsed buildings which now

became a place for garbage and litter to be thrown. They have a sewage system but

the overall health or the hygienic condition is poor, due to lack of hygienic concepts

in their minds as well as the garbage areas in the collapsed buildings ruins.

It is an economic and social sustainable community, homogeneously living, trading

with each other, knowing the families and the neighbors’ roots so they can feel safe

about their children and their homes. Almost no bullying acts happen in the area;

younger people respect the elders and respect the ones who are respectful by being

polite or the most powerful in the whole area.

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On interviewing some of the residents whether they like to stay here in Bolaq or

not, almost all the answers were around being born in Bolaq and that they would

never think to leave it: "نمشي؟ نمشي نروح فين؟ احنا اتولدنا هنا و هنموت هنا " others kept

complaining about the idea of relocation to 6th of October or Al Nahda as they are

“desert”, “our childhood, dreams, hopes and future is related to this place”. Most of

them were saying those words unconsciously upon asking them do you love this

place? They just need new homes, whether the governmental plan for the 64 towers

or any other solution to keep them in the same place and prevent houses from

collapsing.

So after couple of days surveying the buildings conditions, observing people’s

social habits and making them familiar with our presence, we managed to meet the

dominating association MYA and the Kuwait Company delegate; actually the

company delegate meeting was a lucky chance, as he saw us walking in front of his

office so we heard him talking about our activity and saying he wants to invite us to

know what exactly are we up to, so we managed to take the chance and go greet

him.

Company Delegate Meeting (Investors)

After asking us whom we work for and some other interrogation, he started to talk

and felt free to say the company’s intentions. First of all he is a retired army officer

and started to work for the company a couple of years ago; their office is located in

an important street called “Zahr Al Gammal”, he started his talking about the

importance of Maspero area and how will the company be able to help the people

have a better life whether by giving them money to leave the place or giving them a

small area on the edge (7 feddans) to build them the 64 towers; but after giving them

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the apartments they will sell it as its value now become higher so they will leave

anyway. It was just a nice beginning to make us feel that their company care about

the people and will help them, however the true intentions appeared as soon as we

asked about the ownership of the homes and lands to the residents; angrily he

started to yell that the people have no rights in the land and its all owned by three

companies (the Kuwaiti, Saudi and Maspero company), so we managed to go further

with him and tell him that we saw the ownership contracts of some owners. He

started to shout and his tone changed into a rude one, “those contracts are forged

and they are not real.” He said, they have no rights in the land or the houses and if

the company wants to remove them, it can do that easily. He completed that he has

the map that shows the area of land owned by the company, so we saw it, and

were shocked of the central bulk owned by that company, he completed yelling

trying to convince us with that the company has the land but they will give some

money to the residents to leave; by chance a member of the MYA was passing –we

think that someone told him- and managed to enter the office, as soon as he stepped

inside, the delegate changed radically, he greeted the association member, offered

him a seat and started to talk about the rights of the residents in the new 64 towers

to be built and how it is planned for them to have a nice plot of land for the new

project; we were wondering how that guy was offending the people and now he is

completely on their side. He completed: هتتعمل هتخدم سكان بوالق و هترفع من ي للالمشاريع ا"

". مستوى المعيشة بتعتهم و هتعلي قيمة االرض و الشقق Some quarrel happened between the

association member and the delegate about the land ownership whether it is the

residents’ or the companies’, from which we concluded that the land is distributed

into many shares; it belongs to some owners (residents), the three companies, the

Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Information. Most of the residents

have the rights to live and benefit from the monopolized land they are on, yet they

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don’t own it with a direct contract, others own the houses with a contract or renting

it with an old rent system.

After this meeting we settled with the member who came across the

delegate's office on a date to meet the association –most of its effective members-

we thanked each other and left.

(Zahr Al Gammal st.; wall graffiti saying “no for displacing”) (Small narrow “Atfa”)

Maspero Youth Association Meeting

On the date we gathered with the members, and started with a simple open ended

question: "when the association start and what did triggered the idea?”

One of them started, the association began as an idea when we wondered how they

can sweep or displace us to other houses without giving choices; so we started to

meet each other, people with the same ideas and problems, and we got houses

removal warnings at the same time, " الحرم االمنيبحجة بيت 96و مشكلت ال".

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We tried to rephrase the question again:” ok would you please tell us the

exact timeline of the association formation and what caused it, and how many

inhabitants joined this association?”

This association is formed from a lot of people who started it to stand and negotiate

with the government, and now it is formed of many inhabitants " كل بيت الكبير بتاعو

"منضم للرابطة , Then he completed, the problems started since 1990 when the Ministry

of Foreign Affairs removed the residents in “hattaba” that land area occupied by the

Ministry nowadays, but of course it was a public benefit so we couldn’t argue; once

they stepped the first foot in displacing people, it will be repeated many times and

that’s what happened.

In 1992 after the earthquake that cracked many buildings in Egypt, Bolaq has

witnessed some major cracks in many buildings, so the government started to

interfere and displace the residents to Al Nahda. And since then, the companies

started to direct their efforts to take this land; moreover the governor’s efforts to

give us promises went all in vain, what provoked us at this period as well is that Doha

tower next to Hilton Ramsis, this land had an owner, who sold it to the hotel –all of

that is totally legal- the strange thing is that the government let the hotel build a

tower but for the residents of Bolaq Abu Al Ela, it is illegal and they can’t even

renovate the houses which are about to collapse. When we managed to talk about it

with the officials, they told us never talk about that issue again it is a sovereign

decision.

“Anyway let me complete to you”, another member said and completed his

colleague’s talk; the governor at that time –the earthquake year- sent a contractor to

demolish the cracked buildings: "معظم البيوت هنا الحيطان ، انت داخل تهد في حارة علي ناصر

لي طب اسحب العرق بحجة انك بتهد البيت ده و طبعا ايه يطربق البيت ال، شرك يعني ممدود عليهم عرق واحد

"جنبه

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He completed telling us an awful accident that happened, when the contractor

ordered to demolish the shared wall so that two labors were dead when the ceiling

collapsed as well as the neighboring house where a new bride and her mother died.

Moreover some people begged the contractor to leave a wall or a room in their

demolished house, so later they can ask for apartments with the rooms’ number they

have.

A third member intervened and said that this land is monopolized by the

government and was resolved parts of it by the companies; they convinced the poor

people of Bolaq to raise cases to resolve the monopolized land by the Ministry of

Awqaf and make up fake successors for the land ownership and buy the houses from

the people: "استلمت من سكات كده تاخد الكعب اليدوهولك و، من االخر كده لو البيت وقع و االرض حكر

"استلمت مستلمتش في داهيه ; the problem is that there we are original owners for the land

and they gave it away to successors and others, when those new owners died or

traveled the land became property of the Ministry of Awqaf (monopolized at this

point) so how do the companies get the original owners to resolve the land from

Awqaf Ministry and own it? Unless they have under the table deals with the

government who own the archives for the original owners.

From the year 1996 to 2000, when the governor at that time ordered to make a

survey for the number of residents and registering every family, people of Bolaq

started to cheat and renovate a basement room or roof lodges –from the period of

the earthquake leftovers-, faking that there are relatives living in those rooms, in

order to register more apartments. People kept asking the government to let them

renovate the buildings or have a permission to build new houses but it was always

rejected, until the year 2008 when it rained heavily to dissolve the buildings and

make ceilings collapse –two buildings collapsed at that time-; people got mad and

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started to have a real cause to gather and form the association instead of working

and awaking people individually, at that moment we started to collect data about the

whole story and to fight for our rights . In this period more than 40 houses were

taken for the sake of the companies, without any kind of survey or evaluation for the

houses situations. We took notices and warnings that our houses are considered as a

second degree danger, we were aware that if we didn’t make a recourse to those

warnings, our houses will be demolished and that is what was about to happen. A

couple of days later, the police came to demolish the houses unless we go to the

court and get the recourse code that we must do, to stop the execution. Rumors

prevailed in this period by the officials’ men down the streets that there is nothing

called recourse and it is useless. In 2008 a new rule was made that there is nothing

called recourse to the decisions indeed yet they made a committee -but it was

executed and worked with this rule in 2009-, called the tripartite committee, to

evaluate the buildings and to listen to the appeals: اطعن على ، يعني تبقى الخصم و الحكم"

.مستحيل اطعن ان القرار غلط) قانون البناء الموحد(قرار انت عملهولي ازاي

In 2010 we started to direct our activities to the media and the international

organizations, especially the Amnesty International who listened to the whole story;

later they sent an official letter to the Prime Minister “Ahmed Nazeef” demanding

him not to displace people by force from Maspero triangle. That was a really big thing

to us and we started to get confident and contacted many organizations to gain the

sympathy of other 27 international ones. When the officials realized that the people

of Bolaq became aware to their case and can defend themselves they permitted the

recourses in 2008 to take their chance in courts but after that year it’s over as the

rule been worked with in 2009. Otherwise police started to throw the furniture from

houses and demolish it, for those whose recourses were after 2008, yet people got

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mad, some wrote endorsement to take the responsibility of the people living in the

houses and others just refused and prevented the demolishing order execution.

The officials had the power and the rules to manipulate us and to turn the table on

us, by making a new committee called “security study” for those who refused the

execution of the demolishing order, considering it as a bullying act and have to be

jailed for it. Later on the 25th of Jan revolution started and houses kept collapsing but

every now and then something triggers us to go and make a protest: " الثورة جت و قلنا

."مفيش مين معانا او مش معانا خالص الروح مفيش اغلى منها، فقلنا نكلم، هينداس علينا

They were also asked about the association's main role towards the Maspero

triangle and the danger acting upon them as inhabitants in the area. The three

interviewed personnel replied that the association's main role is to reject the crisis of

abandonment from their home land; this was all due to the fact that the government

uses inhabitant's ignorance of political/social life. The main role is achievable by

protesting in the streets as all general officials ignore their desires and requests as

their requests are essentials. "فبنعرف نوصل ، ساعتها االعالم بيعيرنا اهتمامه، بنتظاهر و نقفل الشارع

"هللمسؤولين و نقولهم طلبتنا و ايه اللي احنا محتاجين

As for the economic factor and financial statement of this neighbourhood or as

they call it Their Country "دناهي دي بل " . They were asked about how much is the rental

value and if people do sell their own properties and how is it achievable? There were

definite answers around that there is no legal actions or legal rentals with papers, no

one do sell their property using official documents due to that most of the buildings

have removal orders by the government. However, brokers are available in the

neighbourhood controlling the buying and selling process targeting poor families who

are in need of money or inhabitants who are not actually living in their houses as

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they have inherited these houses from their grandparents with no real need for it.

The broker puts the range of the price for each plot area in the neighbourhood which

is of an average from 1,000 EGP to 2,000 EGP/m2.

They were requested to answer what are the qualities that are in Maspero's

triangle that could not be found in any other places, if the process is to re-locate

them outside this neighbourhood. Three factors were introduced as they replied

intelligently:

• Social Factor: "عمل/ قرابة / نسب (الناس كلها عارفة بعض ، ارتباط الناس ببعض ( ،

"لو رحنا مكان تاني هنحس اننا ضايعين

• Practical Factor: As it is in Cairo's central Hub, residents in the

triangle either work in their same place next to their residents or

within a walking distance from downtown, there is no need for

transportation as there is a huge factor of sustainable work living.

• Psychological Factor: This neighbourhood as mentioned earlier feels

like it is their home land, or as they stated "لو نقلتني من هنا الي حتا تنيه ،

ا هي بلدنا مينفعش نمشي و المنطقة ديه بالنسبلن، كأنك انت اتنقلت من مصر الي بلد تنيا

"نسيبها

Being a huge concern for the current residents, to be displaced from their

homes to another area (6 October / Nahda), the other alternative proposed by the

government in the past 2 years, to relocate the buildings for 1/3 of the triangle

constructing 64 tower buildings for the current residents to live in, and transforming

the other 2/3 to the administrative private sectors. This solution is well accepted by

residents as they find it the most convenient solution.

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Another big concern, of this Youth Association is how they would keep the

residents and investors rights, and how would they deal with the investor by either

supporting / neglecting them. This was a long conversation; they were always

defending around themselves as residents as they need their rights to be preserved

by the government, having a positive side of the new projects that would be

constructed in the neighbourhood as the residents could start to be involved either in

the construction process or working as drivers, security, maintenance or any other

vacancies valid for them, which would support their social & economic sustainability.

On the other hand as it was asked whether they would support the investor or not,

they were very protective, indicating that the government plays a huge role in this

part as they would not hand them as preys to the investor (Predator). " الحكومة

"المستثمرجنب متسلمنيش فريسة للمستثمر ساعتها احنا نساعد و نقف , we would help the investors as

long as they do support us, and help us financially to fund our new built houses as

they would support us and help them to end all troubles.

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Conclusion

In Conclusion, from our investigations and negotiations we came up with a list of

priorities towards the residents needs to feel safe and satisfied with actions, this list

was revised with the association to reflect their desires and needs, which is listed as

below. Priorities are listed in a descending order:

1. The 64 towers in Maspero triangle area.

2. The ease of communication with the officials and the government

3. Creating work opportunities for the new investment projects.

4. The missing services

5. Participating with the civilians in the development projects in the area.

6. Tackle and solve the health and environmental issues.

7. Raising the economic standards in general.

8. Widening the street to allow access of ambulance and fire extinguisher

vehicles.

9. Eradicating the problems of drugs.

10. Finding a solution for street peddlers.

11. Raise the cultural, health and aesthetic awareness of people.

12. Solving the problem of school dropouts.

13. Facilitating communications with the investors

14. Develop a dictionary for the league.

15. Exercising a political role.

16. Restoration and rebuilding vacant lands.

These priorities could be the starting point for the government to start

focusing on the group as a whole and to try to solve the problem that is facing this

district.

Maspero triangle analysis (descriptive paper) By Omar Roshdy/Yasser Assaf

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