JEDDAH — Residents of Ghulail and Petromin districts in south Jeddah are complaining about the delay in executing a development project that was approved seven years ago.
After the approval, local authorities started razing 721 properties marked for removal to make way for the development project.
The residents of the two neighborhoods were pleased when the municipality team began working on the project and started to demolish some of the buildings. But they were shocked when work on the project stopped without any valid reason, Al-Madina newspaper reported.
Hamed Al-Qarni, a resident of the neighborhood, said, “All of us are waiting for this project to be completed. It was disappointing to see the pace of the project slowing down and then it completely stopped. We hope the conditions in our neighborhood will be improve so we can enjoy living there.”
Ibrahim Al-Sabti, another resident, said, “We are suffering a lot. Streets are narrow inside our neighborhood, which faces many other problems. The demolition of some building was aiming at expanding eight major streets and to put an end to chaotic conditions inside the neighborhood. The situation remains as it used to be and we are suffering.”
Mohammed Al-Qozi said the two neighborhoods need urgent improvement in health, environmental, social, education and security sectors. He said, “We need to put an end to the problem of illegal residents who turned our neighborhood into an illegal market, selling unhealthy food and expired products in narrow streets. There are fruit and meat from unknown sources and we have complained several times to the municipality, but without any luck.”
Ahmad Khambash, another resident, pointed to the importance of resuming the stalled project and cleaning up the neighborhood. He said in case of a fire, Civil Defense fire trucks will not be able navigate the narrow alleys. “We want the municipality to change the name of our neighborhood into something that is more appealing,” he added.
Jeddah Municipality has confirmed that a few buildings in Ghulail were demolished for the expansion of the streets and the work would resume soon to remove the remaining buildings.
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