During a meeting in New Alamein on 10 August, President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi directed the government to take firm action to safeguard public access to beaches.
No unauthorised buildings, facilities, or construction work should be carried out within 200 metres of the shoreline if they obstruct the view or diminish the general public’s right to enjoy beaches.
He also called for the formation of a committee to immediately inspect conditions on the ground and to oversee the removal of any obstacles and infringements.
The president’s directives are part of a broader policy that aims to ensure the efficient management of public assets and facilities, guarantee that the public benefits from them, and subject all construction projects and development work along the coasts to applicable laws and planning regulations.
Alexandria governorate immediately began to implement the directives, removing obstructions that blocked the view of the waterfront. Alexandria Governor Ahmed Khaled took charge of actions to remove tourist facilities and structures along the Corniche whose contracts had expired or which obstructed the view.
The initial operations included two establishments in the Camp Caesar and Sporting districts.
The governorate’s executive authorities and district administrations were instructed to continue with the identification and immediate removal of walls, building extensions, or other obstructions along Alexandria’s Corniche to ensure the unimpeded view of and access to the sea.
In a statement, the governor said that expired contracts with beachfront investment and tourism establishments would not be renewed if they obstructed the view, while existing contracts would be respected until their expiration date.
According to a governorate source, who asked not to be named, the president’s directives coincided with the expiry of the contracts of two of the largest cafés operating on the Alexandria Corniche.
The owners of these hold three-year usufruct contracts awarded through public auctions conducted by the governorate’s Beach Administration. Under the terms of the contracts, the cafés’ structures must be made of wood as opposed to a permanent material such as concrete.
The source stressed that the governor’s decision was neither unfair, as some have attempted to portray it, nor unlawful. It was a measure the governorate was entitled to take at the appropriate time, he said.
People’s right to access beaches and view the sea should take priority over other considerations, he said, adding that the governorate was committed to this approach even though “the usufruct contracts for these establishments generated substantial annual revenues that the governorate could use to finance other activities.”
Although the president’s directives followed a heated debate on social media concerning the accessibility of beaches at the new resorts on the North Coast, the first rapid response came from Alexandria.
The campaign initiated by the Alexandria governorate has raised important questions about managing public spaces such as beaches. Abbas Al-Zaafarani, a professor of urban and environmental planning and design at Cairo University, agrees with the need to ensure public access to beaches and an unobstructed view of the sea; however, implementation requires transitional rules so that the situation can be rectified gradually, especially in the case of existing structures, he said.
He warned that the sudden imposition of new requirements could create legal and practical complications. Instead of requiring the immediate removal of establishments, they should be given grace periods to bring themselves into conformity with the new policy by, for example, redesigning structures in ways that restore unimpeded views and access.
Protecting the seascape should not translate into closures or hampering investment. It requires a balance between the public’s rights and the needs of service providers. This can be done through urban-planning regulations governing site coverage and building heights in order to preserve unobstructed views of the sea while taking into account the particular characteristics of each area.
This approach is preferable to applying a single rigid rule, Al-Zaafarani said.
Beach operators should be allowed to construct units to specified standards for use as kitchens, storage areas, or public toilets, he said, provided that these structures do not cover more than 10 per cent of the beach area.
They should also be permitted to construct sun shelters covering no more than 20 per cent of the area. In the specific case of Alexandria’s beaches, these structures could be constructed in such a way that they do not obstruct the view, since in many areas the promenade is at a higher level than the beach.
Al-Zaafarani also argued that just because a beach is public does not mean it must be free of charge. Charging admission can help cover the costs of the services provided to the public and of cleaning and maintenance.
With this approach, he added, tourist establishments can provide services within designated areas while the public’s rights to access the beach and view the sea remain intact, thereby achieving a balance between investment needs and the preservation of the public character of beaches.
Al-Zaafarani based his arguments on diverse international experiences of waterfront management. Those models do not follow a single rule on the proportion of beach areas that can be commercially exploited. Instead, this factor varies from country to country, depending on their tourist areas, their ownership laws, and their administrative systems, he said.
Beaches are generally treated as public resources, he added, but private services or investments are allowed on 40 to 80 per cent of a city’s beach areas in designated zones.
Egypt could benefit from these models, not by imitating them, but by using them as a guide for developing a system that balances coastal investment with the public’s right of access to the beach.
Bassem Fahmy, a planning expert with the United Nations, raised the issue of beach protection.
Egypt possesses internationally significant sites, including nature reserves in the Gulf of Aqaba, the Gulf of Suez, and along the Red Sea coast. Some areas cannot be left vulnerable to harmful practices that could damage them and their natural environment, he said.
At the same time, the authorities managing these beaches need a source of revenue to finance the maintenance, cleaning, and provision of services. Some sites in Egypt are listed internationally, and international experiences could provide useful lessons.
In Malaysia, for example, where some forests are also listed, the government grants a single investment licence per forest. According to the regulations, an investor may establish no more than one restaurant, which is subject to certain construction and environmental rules.
The revenue from this service then helps fund conservation efforts.
In Fahmy’s view, it would not be appropriate to apply a uniform set of rules to all of Egypt’s coastlines. Beaches vary considerably from one stretch of coastline to the next, and some may be suitable for swimming and sunbathing, while parts of the Gulf of Suez, the Red Sea, and the Gulf of Aqaba are not suitable for direct public access to the water due to their terrain, water depth, environmental considerations, or navigation requirements, he said.
If planning is to be done properly, a national map should be drawn up, classifying coastal frontages according to their environmental sensitivity and potential use. Such a map would further identify areas open to the public, areas designated for services, and areas requiring special restrictions for environmental and shoreline conservation.
The problem, according to Fahmy, is not so much the presence of a structure obstructing the view, but the absence of an established set of detailed rules before coastal sites are opened up to investment.
He therefore proposed the introduction of “coastal management zones” in which each city or coastal sector would have designated areas for services, limits on the number of establishments and their capacity limits, and designated spaces for restaurants, cafés, kitchens, cleaning, and other services.
This would prevent the coastline from becoming a string of enclosed real estate development compounds, he said.
The issue was not about choosing between a commercially developed beach that is closed to the public and a public beach with limited services, Fahmy said, but about choosing between a model that allows for investment within a regulatory framework and one that effectively turns the coastline into the de facto property of a limited group.
Likewise, Al-Zaafarani stressed that the fundamental principle is the need to guarantee the public’s right of access to and views of the sea, while allowing commercial exploitation for services in designated areas in return for charges commensurate with the value of the site provided that public ownership and public usufruct rights over coastal resources remain protected.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 20 August, 2026 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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