Where does the Kuwaiti live?

In continuation to my previous article related to the housing crisis in our country, I received a message from a reputed lady commenting on my previous article saying: "With regard to renting in residential areas, we hope that it will be arranged and that laws will be put in place to govern it." We also look forward to the municipality not preventing Kuwaitis from renting their apartments in residential areas, because most families rent to their children in the areas in which they live. She added that in the sixties there were only a small and limited number of cars outside houses, as the building law at that time required the existence of a garage even before the beginning of the building process, but now you cannot drive your car on the street because of the substantial number of cars on the sidewalks."

Frankly, I thought about her observation. Indeed, everyone complains about the spread of investment apartments in residential areas. This old new phenomenon began when the municipality allowed the construction of the third floor and its usual inaction in applying the law and adapting it through a vast number of exceptions. Since the eighties, some suburbs, such as Salwa and Jabriya, have turned into areas dominated by the investment character, and inhabited by many of our Arab expatriates because the rented areas are large in space, in contrast to the investment areas of small apartments and poor buildings.

The increasing demand of Kuwaiti families who are waiting for government housing for such units, in addition to the municipality's permission of two apartments on the second floor to increase the construction rate to 210%, rekindled the real estate developer’s appetite, so they attacked all regions of Kuwait, and they were not satisfied with that, so some of them started creative in violations. Today, we can find a plot of 750 square meters on one street with more than twelve apartments! How is that possible? We direct this question to the Director General of Kuwait Municipality.

With all these shortcomings, these apartments provided adequate housing for Kuwaiti families, and without them, I would have wondered where those Kuwaiti families lived. The units in the investment areas are not of the appropriate space and finish. Other than this, some of those buildings have some infested units, and I mean "bachelors apartments" or "suspicious apartments", and these are people who cannot live next to them. Some of them are keen to infiltrate a reputable building for suspicious purposes. They have ways of defrauding committed real estate owners. I will write about them one day.

As our honorable lady said, the apartments and whole floors in residential areas have provided adequate and safe housing for Kuwaiti families, as many families want their children to live near them and in their areas. Here I wonder: If the municipality and its laws had been so responsible for what happened to us from the violating architectural chaos and the accumulation of renters’ cars on the sidewalks of road safety, Car parks in the residential building system are not mentioned at all in municipal law. In the sense that a plot of four hundred meters with a frontage of sixteen meters is legally allowed to build three floors and a basement, whereas the second floor has two apartments, sufficient to accommodate at least four families, and each family owns at least three cars, for a total of twelve cars. So, as we mentioned above, the frontage is sixteen meters, which means that its maximum capacity for cars is only five cars, while the width of the sidewalk is four meters, and this results in half the size of the car being off the sidewalk. So where will the rest of the cars park?

I had hoped that the car park problem would be solved by law, so that the basement would be designated as a car park, with a setback on the first floor to be allocated, so that it would suffice for another number of cars, in addition to not allowing any violations of the building law and the seriousness of removing them wherever they were found. This matter needs to be organized, and it is not rocket science. All this makes the housing of the Kuwaiti renter in the residential areas worthwhile for him and his family and does not cause inconvenience to the residents of the neighboring villas. My honorable lady, thank you for your observation. It sheds light on the problem from its dark side, and we repeat: Our first and last problem is in the Kuwait Municipality.

Stay safe.