Engineer “Mohammed Al-Mudehim,” General Supervisor of the Vacant Land Fees Program at the Ministry of Housing, revealed during a panel discussion in Al-Sharqiyah that there are 67,000 vacant lots in the city of Riyadh alone, ranging in size from 200 square meters to 1 million square meters.

Al-Madiheim explained that the ministry needs to conduct a survey to identify the locations of these plots in cities, in order to perform electronic assessments without human intervention, Once a plot is entered into the geographic information system, its nature, topography, and building regulations will be determined electronically, which will facilitate access to the services and facilities available on the plot. This means that the land’s value will be calculated electronically, meaning that the website includes a valuation mechanism.

The workshop revealed that the large number of land parcels in Saudi Arabia has led to a lack of data and information, noting the challenges facing the ministry in bridging this gap in a gradual and systematic manner, Al-Madiheim explained that the Ministry is currently working on three parallel projects, including completing the administrative organizational structure, establishing a database, and beginning to implement it.

He noted that the Ministry is working with the Saudi Appraisers Authority (“Taqeem”)—the regulatory body for real estate appraisal—to divide cities into spatial and price zones, thereby facilitating the appraisal process, It is also currently working to complete the geographic information for the cities of Makkah and Madinah.