A comprehensive study should be conducted by the Ministry of Municipality and Environment to decide the viability of allowing Qataris to build three-storey houses instead of the current two-storeyed structures, the Central Municipal Council (CMC) recommended yesterday.
The CMC members also demanded that Qataris should be allowed to add an annex to their houses.
The move is meant to ease the difficulties of many Qataris who find land prices exorbitant to build a new house for their families.
The CMC also recommended that the Ministry of Administrative Development, Labour and Social Affairs should review the system for building the houses of widows and divorced women to ease their difficulties. Besides, the ministry should study the possibility of granting Qatari government employees, who hold only a general school certificate, government accommodation to help them start a family.
Though the previous rounds of the CMC had issued recommendations to allow Qataris to build houses with three floors and a penthouse, they were rejected by the departments concerned, indicating that this would put unwanted load on the public services.
In addition, the authorities argued that allowing an extra storey would also change the density of population resulting in more congestion in certain areas.
Meanwhile, other solutions were introduced by the Ministry of Municipality and Environment (MME) such as increasing the space of the penthouse to up to 80% of the building space, and allowing the building of two small villas on one plot of land when possible, in addition to a major experimental government project to build three-storey houses for Qataris.
At yesterday’s biweekly regular CMC session, the members reviewed the response of MME regarding the previous recommendations of the council on the quality of the asphalt layer used on roads of the country and the quick damage that happens to some of them. The ministry stressed that the Public Works Authority (Ashghal) regularly maintains and repairs any damage to such roads. Also, MME will take into consideration CMC recommendations to ensure the quality of the materials used for road paving.
MME also responded to CMC’s previous recommendations on the shortage of some livestock vaccines, stressing that a new strategy has been adopted to supply enough quantities in a timely manner.
Regarding equipping public gardens and parks with more sports machines, MME stressed it has been keen to increase green and open areas around the country and provide them with the necessary sports equipment.
Also, the MME told the council that two new plots of land at Muaither and Al Rayyan have been allocated to be used as temporary yards for selling and displaying Qatari farm products.
CMC chairman Mohamed Hammoud al-Shafi and all CMC members expressed their condolences on the death of HH the Grandfather Emir Sheikh Khalifa bin Hamad al-Thani.