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Dubai’s government completed a blueprint for the city in collaboration with architects and designers. It is expected that by 2030 world’s urban population will grow by 70%, said Abdullah Raffia, Assistant Director General at Dubai Municipality. And Dubai is the emirate, where 100% of the population are city dwellers. Therefore, the authority will focus on urban planning.
According to the urban design plan, Dubai city can take up to one-third of the emirate’s territory and house up to 9.5 million people. No specific time frame is given for this plan, but with the urban design plan in place, the emirate’s future can be properly implemented, Rafia said.
In the early stages of this plan implementation a major urban project named Desert Rose is already moving ahead. This city project will house up to 160 thousand inhabitants.
“This is at the early stage,” Rafia said. “We’ve contracted the infrastructure designers, so they are engaged. We already have the concept design finished, so a lot of things are finished. It is something that can be built real fast,” he said.
Thus, Dubai real estate market will see thousands of new housing units, added by this city project alone. Besides, all new property units in Dubai from now on will have a high level of sustainability incorporated in their design, Saeed Al Abbar, chairman of the Emirates Green Building Council, said.
Over the past 4-5 years the sustainability standards in Dubai have improved so much, that households can now produce even more energy, than they consume. In this regard, the question arises of the legislative amendments to allow customers to sell electricity they generate by solar power back to the grid.
“We’re going to move away from this ‘less damage’ approach to buildings with an actual positive benefit. We’re also going to see a greater focus on retrofits of existing buildings,” Al Abbar said.
