Heliopolis residents resist home demolitions, forced relocation for road expansion project

Residents of a neighborhood in Heliopolis are fighting to keep their homes amid government plans to demolish them to allow for the expansion of a main highway leading to the new administrative capital.  

A number of residents of Hussein Kamel Street in the Maza district told Mada Masr that they intend to file a lawsuit to oppose the demolition orders, in the latest round of increasingly widespread disputes between urban residents and government development authorities managing projects from Giza to Alexandria, which have led to the demolition of hundreds of properties thus far. 

While residents of the neighborhood insist that their homes are privately owned, East Cairo Deputy Governor Ibrahim Saber told Mada Masr that the housing units belong to the Heliopolis Company for Housing and Development and that the governorate has no intention of reversing its decision. 

On June 9, employees of Cairo Governorate visited several homes on Hussein Kamel Street to ask for details regarding the size of ​​the apartments and the number of residents in each unit, according to one of the residents who spoke to Mada Masr on condition of anonymity. When residents inquired about the visits officials told them there was a governorate decision to remove the first row of buildings to create space to widen the street. The resident told Mada Masr that the street, which is a main thoroughfare in the neighborhood, is already 18 meters wide.

The source went on to say that residents insist on holding on to their apartments, said the resident, which they say are privately owned, licensed and “not an informal settlement.” 

The first resident and two others, who also spoke to Mada Masr on condition of anonymity, claimed that many of the households are in possession of ownership contracts for their apartments. They also said they are not “squatters,” and that some households are tenants who occupy the apartments under the new rent system.

Yet, the deputy governor told Mada Masr that the first row of buildings to be demolished belong to a government housing project and that the current residents “inherited them years ago without paying anything to the state,” adding that the housing company has ongoing lawsuits seeking to evict a number of households for building violations.

“Although [the houses] are owned by the state, we will take into account the social dimension of living in a privileged area in Heliopolis and make [the residents] an offer as if [the houses] were theirs,” Saber added.

The resident said that her partner attended a meeting held by the deputy governor and the head of Heliopolis district later in June, which they only learned about by chance. Attendees were merely informed of the available options at the meeting and were not given the opportunity to discuss the decision with the officials. 

Affected households have two choices for compensation, Saber told Mada Masr. They can either take apartments in the new Ahalina 3 housing project, located approximately 10 kilometers from Heliopolis, where Saber noted that apartment prices are as high as LE1 million, or they can get financial compensation at a rate determined by a real estate appraiser.

Saber told Mada Masr that the governorate is currently evaluating the market price per square meter in the area through a real estate developer, after which it will notify affected residents of the deadline to choose their preferred method of compensation, as well as the deadline to vacate their homes.

A second resident told Mada Masr on condition of anonymity that governorate employees who visited them said that residents would receive eviction orders with short notice in September, and that those who accept the move to Ahalina 3 will first have to rent temporary apartments, at the government's expense, as construction work in the new area is still ongoing.

Other residents, meanwhile, said that experts should evaluate the price of each apartment separately and that the governorate should pay for alternative apartments of the same size and quality in the Heliopolis area.

“I don't want to leave my apartment. My job and my husband’s are in central Heliopolis, and my children’s schools are two steps from home. My whole life is here. Why is the government defining my life and deciding to evict me from my house, which I paid for?” said the first resident, adding that her father, 74, and her mother, 72, live in the building next to her, and are also facing eviction. “Where would they go at their age?”