Beirut’s architectural heritage is disappearing at an alarming rate due to skyrocketing land prices, shortsighted zoning, a lack of urban planning, a limited availability of empty plots and a dearth of government policy.

Illegal demolitions and efforts to destroy a house gradually over time are only marginally penalized while building codes and zoning laws simply add incentive to demolish. As a result, many fear that Beirut — once a glamourous destination oozing charm for the cosmopolitan jet set — is well on its way to becoming a chaotic city of shadowed streets and skyscrapers, lacking a congruent sense of history and identity.

The Ministry of Culture has been trying to find a solution for nearly a decade, but while some ground has been gained, far more has been lost. A 2007 draft law that merged the urgent need to preserve architectural heritage with private property interests was formed over the course of several years of intensive study, but it remains stalled in parliament while the situation on the street is fast deteriorating. As law-makers fail to grasp the important link between heritage and national identity, tourism, education and the economy, the skyline surges ever upward during a period of rapid urban growth.

The only legislation in Lebanon designed to protect the country’s heritage is severely outdated. The 1933 heritage preservation law, inherited from the French mandate era, only addresses structures constructed before 1700, which excludes Beirut’s mansions and villas built during the French mandate and Ottoman era, as well as its more contemporary architectural gems. A survey conducted in Clemenceau just 10 months ago for a private client by architectural urban planning consultancy group URBI revealed that approximately 50 percent of the area’s historical buildings are gone — the definition of ‘historical’ is difficult to pin down, but generally it applies to buildings ‘relevant to the Lebanese collective memory.’

A public record of how many buildings still remain across Beirut is not available, but of the 1,016 heritage buildings classified by a government study in 1995, experts estimate that 250 to 300 are left.

Many activists have lost hope, but there are still a few passionate pragmatists who believe it is possible to find a solution that serves both private and public interests. To formulate a solution that honors both sides of the divide requires understanding of how the city reached its present point, whose interests are at stake and how cultural heritage can be preserved in a way that considers private property rights and the progress of the economy.

[You can] make your profit off of the historical character of the district rather than a sea view

FAR too far

“When you want to protect an area, typically you set the FAR [floor-to-area ratio] equal to existing buildings, or less,” said Habib Debs, owner of URBI, an architectural and urban planning consultancy. “In Beirut, it is too late to do that.” FAR is at the heart of Beirut’s heritage problem. It determines exactly how much is allowed be built on a plot in a specific area. A FAR ratio of 1 means that on a plot size of 1,000 square meters (sqm), a developer could build one floor over the full surface of the land, two floors of 500 sqm each if only 50 percent of the plot were developed, and so on. FAR determines how high the exploitation factor is, and this determines the land’s market value.

Typically, in most cities of the world that have historic quarters, the FAR is set between 0.5 and 2. In Cairo and Istanbul, as in Paris and other European cities with historic quarters to preserve, the FAR is low in the old center and rises toward the periphery, concentrating towers in specific areas. In American cities that were built on flat open lands, the opposite is true. FAR is set high in the center and low at the periphery.

In the 1930’s, the French mandate set rules governing street alignment and the maximum height of buildings allowed in both Damascus and Beirut. The rules followed a model of urban planning common in countries across Europe, North Africa and the Mediterranean Middle East, following a deliberate strategy to prevent tall buildings from overshadowing a city’s historical areas.

The critical point where Lebanon’s urban planning went disastrously wrong was in the 1950’s, when the public authority opted to change the regulations inherited from the French mandate era. Michel Ecochard, a Chicago-educated urban planner, arbitrarily changed the zoning to follow the model of an American city. Ignoring Lebanon’s rich past and the fact that American cities rarely have low-level historical centers to respect, this modification set Beirut off on an illogical path that didn’t fully realize itself until the city’s developers began having the capital, knowledge and technology to build ‘up.’

Perhaps somewhat symbolically, the first two towers to grace Beirut, Burj al Murr and Burj Rizk, were both used as platforms for snipers firing onto the city throughout the civil war.

After the war, developers began merging plots to maximize the building height and profits. This new strategy resulted in higher towers with luxurious sea views. “We tried to point out that this is not the only strategy that makes a good profit,” said URBI’s Debs. “In a historic area, instead of merging plots to build high, you can construct a lower building with a wider surface area on each plot and make your profit off of the historical character of the district rather than a sea view that can only be guaranteed until the next tower pops up,” he added.

Land prices around the world are usually higher in heritage areas, making historic property a valuable resource. Ironically, in a city that had so many buildings spanning numerous architectural periods, their destruction has erased not only social, educational and cultural assets, but economic ones as well.

In 1995, Minister of Culture Michel Edde put together three commissions aimed at solving the heritage dilemma by studying different conservation aspects: economic, legal and architectural. At his request, a protection list of historical buildings was drafted. In all, 1,016 heritage buildings were counted, but only about 500 were kept on the list, because the aim of the study was to preserve heritage quarters, where there were clusters of historical buildings rather than isolated ones. After Edde’s term, the initiative fell off the rails. Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri bowed to private sector pressure and requested the list of buildings be reduced by half.

When the architectural commission, which had continued working under its own will, refused to revise the list on principle, the private company Khatib & Alami was commissioned to the task in 1998. The resulting study whittled the list down to 459 buildings; this remains a compass for the Ministry of Culture until today. A 1999 directive based on the study classified buildings according to a letter system of A, B, C, D and E, with “A” buildings being the most untouchable due to their high heritage value, and “D” and “E” buildings being easy to remove from the list and demolish. The list of buildings has never officially been made public.

Throughout the decades, Beirut’s zoning was modified numerous times. “Each time it was modified to allow more construction, more density, higher FAR… and it was always in the interest of the developers, owners and investors and never in the interest of the common good,” said Debs.

The building code was modified again as recently as 2005, resulting in a 20 to 25 percent increase in FAR, according to the estimations of Fadlallah Dagher, a renowned Lebanese architect and a long-time advocate for architectural heritage preservation. Although the change was presented as a way to build thicker walls for insulation and wider stairwells and elevators, the visible result on the market since 2005 shows markedly larger and taller buildings.

“[The change to the building code] was voted on by Parliament, but it was unofficially written by developers,” said Dagher. “We have a lot of politicians who deal in development, and this is key to understanding why, for more than 15 years, the government has shown no real interest in [creating] a master plan for the city,” he added. Ostensibly, that is why Parliament’s bi-partisan finance and budget committee has shot down a tax on vacant properties and has yet to approve increases in proposed capital gains and sales taxes on property.

 It does not help matters that successive cabinets  have not appointed a full-time head of the Director General of Urbanism (DGU) since 2006. Acting directors are appointed by ministers, and are thus accountable only to their boss and not to the general public.

Recent attempts to reign in zoning over specific areas, such as Gemmayze, have thus predictably failed. The DGU commissioned a study of Gemmayze in 2005 to survey the quarter’s remaining heritage buildings and determine what type of urban planning to apply to the area. Claiming a lack of funds, the DGU never commissioned a private company to execute the study. A circular that aimed at setting building heights to twice the width of the street, enforcing a building’s required distance from the sidewalk and forbidding plot merging was issued but never enforced. Building permits continue to be granted in Gemmayze and towers continue to rise, casting long shadows over the quarter’s future.

“[Property owners] beg for advice on how to get their building de-listed, or to simply just get rid of it”

A web of interests

Many developers and property owners in Beirut do not see in terms of houses but in terms of land. Given that high FARs of 4 and 5 are common in historic areas such as Gemmayze, Ashrafieh, Ain El Mreisseh, Zoqaq El Blat and Clemenceau, a heritage house simply gets in the way for most property owners.

“They regret having a palace, but I can understand them,” said Guillaume Boudisseau, a consultant at RAMCO Real Estate Advisers. “Regardless of how beautiful it may be, it does not translate into any tangible economic value.”

As a real estate consultant, he has seen many property owners who are intent on selling their plot at the same price per square meter as the nearest plot that stands empty. “I tell them that they have to adjust their price to the reality of having a house on it,” Boudisseau said, “but they insist on having an estimate of the empty land value; they beg for advice on how to get their building de-listed, or to simply just get rid of it.”

Some owners also grapple with old tenants paying frozen pre-1975 rent prices as a result of another policy quagmire, the 1992 Rent Act, which allows tenants to pay pre-Civil War prices on leases signed before 1975. Given next-to-nothing rents, buildings often fall into disrepair as landlords lack funds or the incentive to maintain their assets. Because owners cannot evict tenants without lengthy and costly legal proceedings, a developer who is willing to take this burden off their hands by buying the building and land is a dream come true.

For tenants, of course, it is more like a nightmare. Their sole recourse is to petition for the Ministry of Culture to intervene if the building is of any arguable historical or cultural value. As private property rights are prioritized over the public use of land in Lebanon, owners have the right to demand that the government compensate them should it rule that they cannot demolish their house to make a hefty profit like their neighbor.

Owners who wish to maintain their houses also face disincentives. Steep inheritance taxes make an old house a heavy burden to cast on one’s family. It is not even possible to donate the structure freely, as donations of private property are highly taxed. There are also licensing fees for renovation and municipal taxes to pay. Regardless of any good intentions, owners do not have preservation options that make financial sense. Instead of being rewarded for having a classified heritage house that is of great value to the nation’s culture and identity, they are penalized.

As for developers, increasing land values also decrease incentives for preservation. “Six or seven years ago it was still possible to buy an old building at $700 to $800 per square meter, renovate it up to modern standards for about $1,000 per square meter and then sell it off at a substantial profit,” said Karim Bassil, founder of BREI real estate developers. “Now, you can’t buy something historical for less than $2,000 to $2,500 per square meter, making pure renovation work financially illogical.”

Other developers argue that there is no clarity concerning heritage. “They keep on changing the policies and procedures,” said Housam Batal, owner of Premium Properties. Claiming to be unaware of the public outrage his company provoked when it demolished two art deco houses — one of which belonged to painter Aida Marini, famous for her renderings of Beirut during its golden age — to build the Sursock Yards, Batal insisted that he had no idea the buildings were of any cultural value. “They were two ugly, concrete buildings. The government should define specific elements and standards of ‘heritage’ so that we know what constitutes heritage and what does not,” he said. “We are demanding this as developers.”

While many developers frequently argue that because the Khatib & Alami study is not public there are no official guidelines for determining whether a house is classified or not before they purchase the lot, the Ministry of Culture points out that if it were to release the study listing classified houses, it could endanger many buildings; those listed in the “D” and “E” categories can be easily de-classified. Also, it is not difficult to find out if the building is classified or not. “They can always ask the Ministry of Culture… and then they will know the answer,” said caretaker Minister of Culture Salim Warde. 

On the municipal level, recent efforts have been made to cooperate with the Ministry of Culture on demolition permits and to purchase some of the city’s old houses. However, neither the municipality nor the ministry has sufficient funds to buy a large enough number of buildings to make a real impact.

The municipality did manage to save the 19th century mansions belonging to Lebanese luminaries Fayrouz and Bechara El-Khoury — both in Zoqaq El Blat — but two further houses of immense heritage value near Burj al Murr remain “out of budget,” according to Bouchra Itani, chairwoman of the municipality’s new Cultural Heritage Commission that was founded last year.

Although the Commission’s five members — described by Itani as a computer engineer, lawyer, businessman, writer and information technology engineer — are municipality staff, Itani hopes that a commission can be formed in the near future that includes heritage experts and members of cultural movements. “The municipality does not have enough resources for now,” Itani said. “And we cannot stop people from exercising their right to build as long as they are within the law.”

Legal limbo

To date, Lebanon is the only country in the Arab world without a modern heritage preservation law, even though its adoption is just a vote away. The first draft law arrived in Parliament four years ago, with an aim to fairly address the interests of all stakeholders. Proposed by former Minister of Culture Tarek Mitri in 2007 after carrying out extensive case studies, the draft law carefully outlined three major forms of incentive for architectural heritage preservation: compensation, fiscal measures and state support. The law detailed solutions to balance the interests of all stakeholders, including the private sector.

In the draft law’s present form, compensation to owners is dealt with through a method known as the transfer of development rights (TDR). Because land without a heritage structure on it has a high value in the market, TDR would allow the owner to transfer, or sell, 75 percent of the current value of the built-up area he theoretically could build on his land to a developer in another area. The developer would be able to add these additional square meters to his building, beyond the zoning limit to increase his FAR. This mechanism — which has been applied with success in Europe to save historical areas and in the US to create value for depressed areas — allows the owner to benefit financially from selling the virtual built-up area on his lot without losing the house or the property.

To provide incentive to renovate the house, possible fiscal measures in the law include a waiver of inheritance and rent taxes and a fixed period of exemption from municipal and building taxes. Renovation licenses would be waived, and a renovation fund set up by the government would be available to assist owners. Two percent of licensing fees for construction would be funneled back into the fund, with a new committee appointed to direct renovations.

The law regroups buildings by area, with an intention to preserve not individual buildings, but heritage clusters.

The law ran into political trouble, however, and was among 74 proposed pieces of legislation during the period between 2006 and 2008 that were quashed when Speaker Nabih Berri refused to convene Parliament and considered any law that was proposed during the period the product of an illegitimate government.

Late in 2008, the Minister of Culture at the time, Tammam Salam, was contacted by Berri with an inquiry about what could be done to resolve a problem facing one of his partisans who had purchased a property with a classified house on it and wanted it demolished. Salam took the opportunity to explain the draft law to Berri.

On his own initiative, Berri proposed having a member of Parliament from his March 8 coalition extract and re-launch the law from the legislative branch; Salam secured then-Prime Minister Fouad Siniora’s agreement and MP Ali Hassan Khalil reintroduced the law in Parliament. When Salam finished his term, it was still being discussed. In 2011, the law is still sitting in Parliament, waiting to be voted on. Caretaker Minister of Culture Salim Warde worked steadily to get it approved, until the government collapsed this January.

“There are people who don’t want the law to be passed,” Warde admitted to Executive. “But the problem is that [it] is misunderstood. It’s very fair; of that I am certain.” According to Nabil De Freige, an MP in support of the legislation, “a lot of owners don’t want this law because they think they will lose money, but they are wrong. They don’t trust the government, but if [it] is applied as intended, it is a just law that represents the best interest of everyone,” he explained. “We are running out of time to save our heritage. This law is the only practical solution.”

As a successful businessman himself, Warde has worked hard to make the law as considerate of the private sector as it is of patrimony. He has prepared modifications to it that he said “will make [it] even more fair for everyone,” but declined to comment further.

Responding to the impending crisis on the ground while the draft law wallowed in Parliament, the Ministry of Culture under Salim Warde, together with the Ministry of Interior and in cooperation with the Municipality of Beirut, took a major step in 2009 in granting the Ministry of Culture the power to veto demolition permits. Warde told Executive that as of February 2011, the demolition of 84 buildings had been halted. The ministry also set up a hotline (01 612299) to report buildings under threat of demolition.

These moves initially prompted some anger from developers, but many are now either biding their time and hoping that the next minister will be more lenient, or finding ways of coping with the new regulation method by incorporating old buildings fully or partially into their architectural layout. If they cannot destroy it, they build around it or on top of it, as there is no master plan for the city outside of Solidere in downtown.

“No matter how financially attractive the alternatives, destroying the whole building was not an option for us”

Hybrid hopes

“There are no incentives to preserve an old, unlisted building; the easiest and cheapest thing to do in the past was to just knock it down,” said Karim Saade, General Manager of Greenstone, a local development firm that brands itself with “responsible development.”

 In 2005, Greenstone began preparing a pioneering project, L’Armonial, on a plot of land in Ashrafieh that had an art nouveau building on it from the 1920s. Feeling it was their responsibility to find a solution that allowed for its preservation rather than its destruction, they devised a plan to merge the “L”-shaped facade of the building with a modern tower.

Preserving the facade cost at least $1 million, but compared to the cost of the entire project Saade felt it reasonable. “No matter how financially attractive the alternatives, destroying the whole building was not an option for us,” he reaffirmed.

Today, due to the recent demolition freeze, other developers have begun seeing such hybrid alternatives as the only solution to being able to build anything at all. The Aya Tower project in Mar Mikhael by Har Properties is a clear example. The developer initially intended to create a modern tower after demolishing three historical buildings: the Cinema Vendome and two old houses. After the demolition of the cinema provoked the ire of both civil society and the media, Philippe Tabet, vice president and general manager of Har Properties, recalled that “Minister Warde requested another solution.”

This involved finding a way to integrate the first third of the two remaining buildings into the tower, which is easier and more cost effective to do than preserving only the facade. The other two-thirds would be demolished. To his surprise, Tabet discovered that incorporating the older structures into the project was not as difficult, nor as costly, as he had assumed. The architects found a solution in just three months, it was still possible to dig deep for multiple levels of underground parking, and additional costs were but a fraction of the overall funding of the project. With a little creative planning, a small part of the area’s heritage was preserved.

“A modern project puts the house on display,” said Ziad Akl, architect of the controversial MENA Capital Ibrahim Sursock Residences project that includes two towers rising up in what used to be the garden around the famous Villa Linda Sursock. Akl reasons that building a tower around the house is better than demolishing it completely. Nonetheless, the project provoked strong criticism.

In what is an apparent conflict of interest, Akl is also a member of the Superior Council of Urbanism (Conseil Superieur de l’Urbanisme), which serves the DGU and is meant to regulate urban planning, a practice that strives to preserve coherent urban form to promote order in city planning. In defense of the idea to build towers around heritage houses in low-rise areas, Akl said “an incredible sense of disorder is part of what makes Beirut what it is.”

Despite the fact that he is consulting with Ziad Akl on a heritage project on May Ziede Street, long-time proponent of heritage projects, MP Walid Joumblatt, described the Ibrahim Sursock Residences to Executive as “an aberration.”

“People are tempted by profit more than preservation,” he said. “We have a government that is made up of businessmen, capitalists and developers.”

‘Old new’ is the new new

However, profit and heritage are not mutually exclusive, and market forces are beginning to adjust to the shock caused by the sharp decrease in the supply of old houses over the last six years. “Nostalgia has been created by the destruction, and whenever something is disappearing, you want it,” said Saade. “The trend is on.”

In Greenstone’s project, living in the heritage part of L’Armonial will carry a price premium, with a first floor apartment in the old part of the building costing more than an apartment in the tower. Confirming a possible trend, real estate broker Century21 stated that since last year the agency has experienced a significant increase in calls from buyers interested in purchasing or renting historical houses that are either renovated or in need of light renovation.

“It seems to be a growing segment of demand,” confirmed Radwan Sleiman, marketing and sales manager with Century 21 property brokers. Other developments are also beginning to go up in what has been coined an “old new” style.

“There is a demand for this style,” said Tanya Naamani, Marketing and Sales Director of Noor Gardens, which is erecting a low-rise French mandate style building in Solidere with a prestigious British architect. “The type of living this architecture accommodates is more about family and community, which reflects Lebanese culture,” Naamani said. “It’s a lifestyle choice.”

On the other end of the spectrum is the solution to serve public demand for heritage through commercial space. Some companies such as IBL, Bank Audi and Quantum Group have chosen to renovate Beirut villas for use as corporate offices.

While such benevolent sponsors are hard to come by, Bassim Halaby, chairman and chief executive officer of the developer Benchmark, has another idea. “Investment in preserving these cultural landmarks could be incentivized through the concept of linkage,” he said.

 In the US, where Halaby worked for many years, large companies sponsor cultural venues, such as museums, and in return get their name added to the structure for a number of years. “If we sponsor turning an old house into a museum, for example, it becomes the Benchmark Museum,” he explained. “There is a deficiency of land being used for cultural spaces in Beirut, and this could help solve the problem.”

Although the private sector is often demonized by civil society groups, profit motives could help to protect heritage. “People need to feel ownership of something to take care of it,” said Halaby. “Think of the ‘mybar’ idea,” he suggested, referring to a recent project where shares, and profits, of a bar and restaurant are distributed among stakeholders who put down a minimum of $2,000. “Why not apply that to cultural real estate? Instead of investors, get shareholders.”

Following the mybar logic, an old house would be converted into a public venue such as a gallery, hotel, restaurant or bar, and any profit would be shared between investors. Tabet from Har Properties, now a supporter of preserving heritage in the city, took the idea a step further. “Why not create a REIT [Real Estate Investment Trust] for cultural heritage houses?” he suggested, as a REIT would sell on the stock market like a security. A REIT composed of a group of heritage houses used for commercial purposes is a radical idea, but possible applications of the idea are worthy of exploration.

“Nostalgia has been created by the destruction… The trend is on”

Power of the people

There is a prevailing misconception in the real estate sector that the Lebanese public does not care about heritage. But the truth is that while there is an emerging segment of affluent Lebanese who are willing to pay a high price to protect and own their own piece of the past, the majority of Lebanese demanding the preservation of their country’s cultural heritage are everyday people without the means to purchase a luxury apartment. These people wish to share Beirut’s cultural icons, and they are not to be overlooked as stakeholders in the issue.

“Despite the efforts of so many ministers of culture and the media, the law is not drawing enough public support to make it a priority,” said former Minister of Culture Tarek Mitri. “If parliamentarians know that a law is important to the people, they will prioritize it,” he added, urging civil society to press the issue. Although many citizens are frustrated with the powerful reach of certain people in the private sector to block political action on issues of national concern, the past does provide a glimpse of civil society’s potential to make a difference.

In the 1990s the Association for Protecting Natural Sites and Old Buildings, commonly known as APSAD (L’Association pour la Protection des Sites et Anciennes Demeures), managed to stop the complete destruction of Beirut’s old downtown. “They destroyed 90 percent of the historical buildings in the city center and restored only 10 percent, after pressure from civil society,” said Lady Yvonne Sursock Cochrane, founder of APSAD.

The group reached out internationally to gain support for stopping the destruction of Beirut’s historical center.

“As a result of our efforts, a German film crew came and made a shocking documentary about the destruction of heritage that Solidere was doing, and [Rafiq] Hariri was not pleased with the negative publicity,” Cochrane said. According to her account, the media coverage is what prompted Hariri to preserve the 10 percent of historical buildings remaining in the Beirut Central District at that time. “He did a book about the preserved buildings, “Beirut Reborn.” He sent me a personal copy, with a note, ‘Are you happy now?’” she recalled.

In 2006, civil society activists protested 10 new tower projects in the area of Gemmayze. They formed a petition and collected 5,000 signatures, which Mitri presented to then-Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, who blocked the permits to build. Gemmayze was to be put under study to decide the type of development to be permitted from an urban planning perspective. Unfortunately, the July 2006 War broke the rhythm of the civil society effort, causing it to fail. Naturally, the war shifted civil society priorities to larger humanitarian issues, and the tower permits were signed once the attention had been turned elsewhere.

Today, new civil society groups are sprouting up in the city to protest the destruction of heritage. Save Beirut Heritage and the Association for the Protection of the Lebanese Heritage have been founded over the last year and a half and are collaborating with each other, using social media like Facebook and Youtube to reach out to supporters.

“There needs to be a more organized effort at staging civil actions that express the people’s disapproval of what is happening,” said BREI’s Bassil, who is happy to see so many young people interested in the issue, but is still waiting to see a professional movement that reaches effectively across all generations.

APSAD’s Sursock-Cochrane is concerned that the new groups “are not organized enough,” but she has invested her hopes in the stamina of the young generation to carry the issue forward in what she strongly suggests should be a united front. “The problem is that if each one wants to be the head of a small organization, there are too many… and the power is divided,” she said. “If everyone would work together, we could do more.”

According to Warde, even if he does not retain his post at the ministry after the formation of a new government, he will not stop trying to protect heritage buildings and applying pressure for new and effective legislation. “This momentum is reaching the masses,” he said. “I believe civil action can make a change. Whether I am in the ministry or not, I will continue this fight.”

With a logical law ready and waiting in Parliament, civil society must organize and push for a vote and, should it pass, its proper implementation. However, given the lessons of the past, turbulent political circumstances make vigilance all the more necessary.

Without the law’s passage, it is a choice between, at best, a city of hybrid structures that blends the old with the new, or at worst a graveyard of towers. Those responsible for making this choice are not only within the government but are also the citizens who  grant that government its power. No one can be blamed for the loss of heritage more than the Lebanese people, who have either not cared enough to stop it or who have given up hope.

No matter who they are — developers, politicians, owners, architects, investors and even activists — many have allowed this destruction by taking the easy way out, prioritizing their short-term individual interests over a truly national cause.

Diagnosing the architectural heritage issue as the symptom of a greater disease, Salam, the former culture minister, summarized: “Unfortunately, Lebanese people are very aggressive and ambitious on an individual level, but rarely on a collective level. If we go on like this… we will never advance anywhere.”