he Official Bulletin of October 1 published decree No. 2.26.658, which approves the zoning plan for the Maarif district, in the heart of Casablanca, together with its regulations. Signed on September 16 by Aziz Akhannouch, then head of government, and countersigned by Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri, then minister of national territorial planning, the text counts as a declaration of public utility, opening the way to the expropriations needed for the planned facilities. It closed a process begun last year: a public inquiry held from September 11 to October 10, 2025, the plan’s adoption by the district council on October 31 and by the Casablanca city council on December 2, 2025, and a review of objections by a committee that met on March 25, 2026.
Replacing the plan approved in 2014, the document will set the planning rules for the coming decade in a district where land is scarce. Two projects took shape in it: the on-site rehabilitation of the Derb Ghallef joutiya, the city’s famous flea market, and the redevelopment of the 56 hectares now occupied by the Ibn Rochd university hospital, where an integrated health hub could rise, on the model of the large teaching hospital complexes of Rabat and Tangier. It now falls to the city and the state to turn these lines on a map into building sites.
Photo: karel291, CC BY 3.0.
Secrétariat général du gouvernement - Bulletin officiel n° 7548 du 1er octobre 2026, décret n° 2.26.658 du 16 septembre 2026
Médias24 - Après sa publication, le nouveau plan d’aménagement de Maarif entre en phase d’exécution
Wikimedia Commons - Maârif, Morocco - panoramio (2), karel291, CC BY 3.0
