Many countries, such as the United States, Germany and England have reused the unexploited potentials areas inside the current cities as an attempt to meet the growing population needs within urban areas without creation new cities or spending high economic cost by the state. These potentials are varies from one country to another according to their characteristics which called brownfield, it includes contaminated or closed industrial zones, abandoned sites that are not exploited or developed before in an incompatible way with its economic value as well as degraded informal areas and empty lands. Brownfield informal sites are considered the most sites which need to be reused and developed for reducing their negative impact and achieving the goals of all development partners.Therefore, land reuse approach has been adopted at international and local levels for developing informal sites through some policies such as removal policy and evacuation for all population during the 1990s to suggest new land uses like (Gardens- tourism activities- services- investment uses) according to the relative advantage of each site, or resettlement policy in the late nineties to develop old land uses after determination new population needs. These policies faced some challenges such as (the refusal of residents to evacuate- the lack of optimal use for informal sites- high cost of development- the need to provide temporary or alternative sites for residents- the failure in achieving the goals of the state and the population), which made some international bodies ( World bank in 2010 United states in 2019) concern about introducing new policies and mechanisms that achieve the balance in the process of land reuse to exploit the economic value of sites in better way, meet the needs of the population without transferring them as well as encourage the private sector for investment and access to the goals of the state at the lowest cost. Consequently, this paper tries to determine the mechanisms of land reuse approach for developing unsafe informal brownfield sites by reviewing past experiences and studies, recommendations of international reports, as well as the results of evaluating the case study of Telal zenhoum project as an example of removed unsafe informal sites project in Cairo Governorate to show its negative and positive aspects. These mechanisms support decision makers and planners to suggest suitable land uses for removed unsafe informal area in a sustainable way through the participation of all different partners (Government- private sector– population) with the lowest government expenditure and highest returns.
Keywords: Brownfield sites, Telal Zenhoum area, land reusing approach, removal and resettlement policy, unsafe informal areas
