Comprehensive Survey of Unbuilt Land in Casablanca
The city of Casablanca is gearing up to launch a significant initiative aimed at surveying and geo-mapping unbuilt land (UBL) across its entire territory. Casablanca Mawarid, the local development company responsible for optimizing the municipality’s fiscal resources, has issued an international call for tenders to select a service provider tasked with updating land, cadastral, and tax data related to these plots, regardless of their tax status concerning the Unbuilt Land Tax (ULB).
As part of this initiative, which is set to open on June 17, 2026, at the Casablanca Mawarid headquarters in the Casablanca-Settat region, the estimated budget for the project stands at 2.5 million dirhams. The operation is expected to be completed within five months and will cover the entire urban perimeter under the jurisdiction of the Casablanca municipality. To effectively carry out this mission, the selected contractor will be required to mobilize a multidisciplinary team, including a project manager who is a certified land surveyor, specialists in database structuring, and IT development, as well as teams responsible for field verification and analysis of geospatial, cadastral, land, and fiscal data.
Detailed Mapping and Data Collection
The primary objective of the contractor is to conduct a comprehensive update of the unbuilt land, whether it is subject to the ULB or not. The goal is to identify, locate, and document the characteristics of each relevant plot while updating the existing cadastral, urban planning, and land information. Additionally, the contractor will be required to develop an exhaustive and standardized geographic database compatible with the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) used by the municipality, which aims to provide an accurate overview of the unbuilt land across the metropolis.
The contractor will also verify the fiscal status of the surveyed plots to identify those that are subject to the ULB. This will involve utilizing databases related to urban planning permits to identify any temporary exemptions allowed by regulations. Among the essential data to be collected are land references, urban zoning designations, taxable or exempted areas, parcel addresses, and characteristics of unassessed lands such as green spaces, gardens, public facilities, or vacant lots. Furthermore, information regarding the owners of taxable land, including their identities, addresses, ownership shares, and any data available from the field survey, will also be necessary.
The contract issued by Casablanca Mawarid emphasizes the importance of cross-referencing the new data with the existing municipal database related to the ULB to enhance the reliability of fiscal information. The contractor will need to overlay the collected geographic data with tax-assessed plots to accurately evaluate the fiscal potential associated with unbuilt land in Casablanca. Moreover, the contractor is required to develop a digital tool for managing the ULB, which will include features for cartographic visualization, automatic tax calculation, management of exemptions, and calculation of potential surcharges.
This digital tool is intended to provide municipal services with an updated and usable framework for monitoring unbuilt land and managing local taxation. Finally, the successful bidder will be responsible for training the teams of the Casablanca municipality to ensure they can proficiently utilize the geographic database and the functionalities of the forthcoming ULB management application. This initiative is expected to equip the metropolis with a more precise land knowledge tool, potentially enhancing tax collection and urban territory management.
As reported by fr.le360.ma.
