Muscat Municipality steps up monitoring of warehouses in residential areas

Muscat: The Muscat Municipality (MM) has stepped up monitoring of storage facilities in residential areas, as they are “prone to fire, unhealthy, and disrupt traffic.”
The Municipality is working on stopping people from using houses in residential neighbourhoods to store food and other consumer goods on a commercial scale.
Warehouses in the middle of residential neighbourhoods harm residents. Owners of such warehouses tend to acquire trucks to transport their goods, which delay traffic within the neighbourhoods, MM said.
There are also health hazards caused by insects and rodents attracted to foods stored in warehouses.
“One of the main dangers with the presence of warehouses in residential neighbourhoods is that of fires breaking out,” MM added.
The presence of such storage facilities in residential neighbourhoods could be because of their proximity to shops.
Khalid Al Rahbi, Director of the Urban Inspection Department at MM, said: “One of the causes of this phenomenon could be that rents in residential areas are lower compared to industrial areas.”
MM is working with the authorities, such as the Ministry of Housing, to transfer these illegal warehouses to licenced sites. “MM has also coordinated with the Ministry of Housing to provide lands to establish warehouses and for businesses and factories,” Al Rahbi said.