Some residential areas have too many workshops and garages, say citizens

NT Bureau

DOHA: Citizens in the Muaither and Umm Salal Muhammad regions have complained about residential neighbourhoods being transformed into workshops and car garages, which hinders the movement of families and causes environmental violations that harm the population, Al Sharq reports.

Speaking to the newspaper, many citizens said that commercial establishments should be distributed according to the needs of each area and it must be based on the population density and whether their distribution achieves the goal of establishing them.

“If good planning is done on the basis of each city’s needs for a certain number of commercial activities, the situation would have been much better. Therefore, I call for legalizing commercial markets and not banning them, because commercial activities are important for all residents of the regions, but random increase without planning is always counterproductive,” Ali Fahd Al-Shahwani, a former member of the Central Municipal Council (CMC), told the paper.

Al-Shahwani said that one of the most important reasons for the spread of commercial markets in Al-Furjan is the absence of strategic planning, as there are commercial markets in some areas that exceed the needs of the residents there, while there are cities and residential neighbourhoods that lack basic stores such as supermarket and barber shops.

Hassan Al-Muhannadi said that the phenomenon of increasing commercial establishments in some areas is worrying for residents of the region, especially families, but this is a result of the lack of good planning before establishing and distributing commercial markets.https://www.luluhypermarket.com/en-qa

Muhammad Al-Abdullah said that one of the biggest disadvantages of commercial markets in residential neighborhoods is crowding, which is disturbing for residents, as some residential neighborhoods have turned into workers’ housing as a result of the large number of commercial shops, and the Muaither area is a bad example of lack of good planning.

All of Muaither’s streets have become commercial and the area has turned into a commercial market area, he said. There are also some commercial activities that are not suitable for practice in the area, such as workshops and garages, which have increased significantly. The large number of commercial shops in residential neighborhoods causes a scarcity of parking spaces for residents, and this chronic problem worsens during peak times.