It is a month now since the Iran’s Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization (ICHHTO) took charge of examining the plight of “the biggest house in Tehran”. The organization had promised to study the case and according to its chairman, “they will not be pressured by the media” and would handle the matter calmly.
However, the manager of historical buildings and sites in Architecture and Urbanization Department of Tehran Municipality, Mohammad Bagher Khosravi, maintains that the ICHHTO is making efforts to get an entry warrant for Sabat Pasal.
Khosravi pointed out that earlier the government was in charge of the premises. “The house is not obscure and all the building plans are available. Therefore the ICHHTO can hasten the process of registering it as a national building,” he observed.
He further said that in every organization there is a department in charge of its properties and premises, which is also responsible for making a list of premises and providing their plans. If the premises are planned to be handed over to any other organizations, the in-charge expert from the department has to be held responsible for providing the relevant documents.
He criticized the legal flaws as well as the apathy toward valuable heritage and said that plight of historical buildings is the worst in urban areas. The rules considering historical buildings as something merely to preserve must change and attention should be paid to their intrinsic value, he said.
Khosravi emphasized that the practice of renovation of historical sites should be cultivated in Tehran. Reviving this market can attract investors. By registering Sabet Pasal House in Iran national heritage list, the price of the property will decline to the sole market value of the land. Normally when this happens, the private owners of historical buildings vacate or rent them after they are registered, which leads to their ruinous state.
The recent news about national registration of the house was reported by ISNA. There are plans to turn the house into a nine-floor trading center that will create heavy traffic chaos in Nahid Street, where the building is located, reports say.
