Egypt’s government has decided against renewing its six-month construction ban in Greater Cairo and Alexandria to end as of December, setting a six-month transitional period to outline the proposed city-scale building and planning controls and requirements for eliminating previous loopholes, Invest-Gate reports.

The announcement came during a Cabinet virtual meeting on November 23, in the attendance of Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly, Minister of Housing, Utilities, and Urban Communities Assem El Gazzar, Minister of Local Development Mahmoud Shaarawy, among other officials and representative bodies, according to a recent official statement.

The transitional phase aims to control and govern the building permit system, including requirements of obtaining new licenses for new commercial and administrative activities, restrictions on building height and land use for residential purposes, and parking lot design requirements, El Gazzar explained.

“It also stipulates the application of all building requirements set by relevant ministries and authorities, on top of those by the national committee formerly formed to set conditions for housing buildings construction,” the minister further added.

On his part, Shaarawy emphasized the need for communicating with citizens and responding to their queries on the new building regulations, especially those with the “old” building permits.

That is why Madbouly mandated the establishment of a joint committee of the housing and local development ministries to help find solutions and resolve the violated cases that still did not reconcile with the state.

In late October, the Cabinet had issued a decree to extend the deadline to receive applications for reconciliation in building violations for another month, to end next November, as highlighted in a previous statement. 

Back then, Madbouly confirmed more than 2.1 mn reconciliation requests have been admitted to the government, which “reflects the citizens’ keenness on legalizing their status.”