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There is such a concept “Planning Gain” where land increases in value because of infrastructure and zoning. Land owners will then have to “PAY” for the additional gain in the price of their land because of the installation of public goods. You can thank God we don’t have hear for now. I think it is fair when your land value goes up (Total Land Value), and the Government needs to cut up roads/schools/libraries/parks. Otherwise they’d be no development would there? There is still a ton of unplanned land, with no access or infrastructure. As long as the process is transparent and public, the Government should work in the interest of the PUBLIC + make sure nobody is losing any money on the total worth of their land.

A final note, subdivisions should be segregated smaller lands 15% or so, and bigger lands upto 30% it makes sense too. It would help to have a system with zoning types and the respective road width that goes along with it – so we don’t end up creating another Juffair. But anyway …

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That same law – as far as I understand – applies to all situations and not just new developments. Therefore, the government can decide that they want to widen a road which my house happens to be beside, they would advertise the plan in the Official Gazette for a couple of months and as per law, that would deem that I have accepted not only the appropriation of 30% of my plot which everything that is on it, but also the valuation the committee has decided upon. All without my participation nor knowledge!

Yes, the government needs to do these things sometimes, cities develop and roads need to be built. These are facts of life. What they should do however is at least make the process fairer and the compensation adequate to allow the land/home-owner to relocate or rebuild to at least the same standard of his house/neighbourhood etc.

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People who own large pieces of land might not need compensating, but what about people who own a small piece of land? What if that small piece of land is the only property they own and depend on? they would risk loosing upto 30% of the land. yes, I know that when roads are done, land prices go up, but the way I look at it is that the land owner used to own 100% of his land, now he owns 70% of it, for me that is totally unfair. Taxes is another issue, I dont want to change the topic of this post, but Bahrain does need taxation of some sort..

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There is another law – I could not find a reference to yet – which allows the government to appropriate up to 30% of any parcel of land without offering any compensation to the owner!

Amiri Decree-Law No. 3/1994, Article 1/5*

* Search for:
المرسوم بقانون رقم 3 لسنة 1994 بشأن تقسيم الأراضي المعدة للتعمير

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Sometimes, though, the land is taken by the state at the time of subdivision from a large plot to many smaller plots to allow for roads. In that case no compenation is due as the value of the sum of the plots once subdivided always exceeds the original total. In some countries in addition to losing land to the state at subdivision time owners have to pay tax on the profit generated from the change of use so it all depends on the individual case at the time.

I would guess on the compenation issue in al lot of cases it was the large landowners who lost the land in the first place and they probably don’t need compensating.

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As for the compensation issue, I completely agree. Even if the government takes one single square inch it should compensate the owners for that appropriation. Otherwise there is no point in saying that private property is protected constitutionally.

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and about the 30% thing, I actually heard about it, that can be too much, but sometimes you actually need to take land from people say 15-20% to make roads and water/electricity hubs etc. But people should get compensated for that even if they had 1% of the land taken from them.

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