Tehran, November 16 (MRUD News)—Iran Supreme Council of Urban Planning and Architecture has approved incentive policy package in planning on October 15, 2022 in order to facilitate regeneration of the old urban areas.

One of the main challenges of Iran Government in housing and urban planning is regeneration of the old urban and rural areas. For the latter, the Government has predicted loans for rural housing retrofitting and renovation; however, for the former it is providing special incentives for developers to empower the owners and promote participation of the citizens who are usually from the low-income community.

Participation of citizens is the main solution in the regeneration of old urban area. The issue is a challenge for urban policy-makers as the owners and the developers are not financially able to build new houses because it is not economical to build in these areas. So, the Government has to provide incentives to persuade the process of regeneration, according to the deputy minister and head of urban regeneration company, Mohammad Aeeni.

Basically, the incentive package is organized into four categories. The first category targets integrated regeneration at the scale of the urban block, the second targets renovation in the main areas of the neighborhoods, the third includes renovation within the old urban area, and the fourth includes renovation of units/parts that cannot be combined.

For instance, at the scale of an urban block, among other things, the package grants maximum two additional floors compared to the allowable residential density while for the second and third groups, one additional floor is granted. Other incentive is allocation of 20% of the unroofed open space of the complex in order to provide part of the required parking spaces. Also, the ground floor is permitted for commercial use.

Currently, there are 166,000 hectares inefficient urban areas in Iran (accounting for 23 percent of urban areas) including the old middle neighborhoods (74,000 hectares), informal settlement (59,000 hectares), historical areas (32,000 hectares). This area encompasses about 5,800,000 houses of which 2,682,000 are unsustainable. Five million houses can be built in these old urban areas.

The old urban areas in the middle neighborhoods have three characteristics of unsustainability, inaccessibility, and being in small parts making them susceptible to natural hazards.

By now, during previous governments, 210000 houses were renovated and 670000 new houses were built.

Housing is a challenge in Iran while only 8 to 10 percent of Iran's area can be inhabited. In other words, industry, services, agriculture and housing are distributed only in this 10 percent.