Andrew,
There is more to it than meets the eye. I know this neighborhood and the story behind the story is as follows:

1-These houses were not demolished yesterday; the government did this some time ago by giving unreasonably low compensations to the home owners.

2-After it started demolishing the houses, the government found out that there is no budget outlay for the road enlargement that these houses were demolished for.

3-There are still some people who are waiting to get their monies from the administration.