Turning tragedy into transformation

The notorious ‘old rent’ law that has pitted landlords against tenants for more than half a century may, after two decades of legislative delays, be seeing its last days. If the draft of the new rent law passes in Parliament this month, landlords and real estate developers will be lighting up the sky with fireworks. The prospect of reclaiming properties in the coming years — meaning land to be bought and sold — entails billions of dollars in potential earnings amid a renewed construction frenzy in land-scarce Beirut. But for tenants, a less certain future awaits, hinging on a planned government fund to financially assist economically disadvantaged tenants pay gradually higher and higher rents, and the actualization of public housing projects to re-house the dispossessed. The lingering law The ‘old rent’ law is one of the more bizarre laws still in existence. Enacted after World War II to prevent socio-economic