Car shades-121016

Bahrain: NEW regulations that will legally allow people to set up car shades outside their homes are
being drawn up.

Homeowners have long been permitted by the Works, Municipalities Affairs and Urban Planning
Ministry to instal the shades outside their properties, however, with many extending the shades onto
the streets or encroaching on their neighbours properties municipality officials have been removing
them without warnings.

Requirements

Northern Municipality director general Yousif Al Ghatam said authorities were looking into regulating
the practice to prevent such violations.

There are no rules that determine if shades are legal or illegal despite most, if not all, being erected
on the streets, which is a government property, he told the GDN.

So it is left to us to make the call at the moment on what shades are acceptable and what are not.

The shades are not being removed by us unless there are complaints from the closest neighbour or
neighbours on the ground that it blocks the road or seizes several car park spaces that should be
shared.

We are currently working on new regulations that will determine acceptable shades and spaces
besides other procedures and requirements, in addition to fees that would be paid for the shade to
be allowed per vehicle or vehicles depending on homes or buildings, but first we need to introduce a
general system.

Mr Al Ghatam said the regulations would reduce the number of complaints received by each
municipality as it would create a set of unified rules for all homeowners in the country to follow.

Sometimes the shades are set up nicely and dont obstruct view or cause any harm, but a
neighbour has a grudge against the homeowner and they tend to complain, and we have to remove
the shades since they dont want it, he explained.

In other cases, we have someone who neighbours are afraid of and dont complain, while he is
forcing them to park far away from their homes, as he has seized all available spaces in the
neighbourhood and turned them into his own.

Both are unfair cases of how shades are being set up and us intervening between conflicted
neighbours is not the right way as sometimes we might take the wrong decision in whether to allow a
shade to remain or not.

There were incidents in which neighbours fought amongst themselves we want that to end. We
need regulations.
mohammed@gdn.com.bh