Dubai is a regional hub spanning North Africa and the Levant to the west, South Africa to the south, various Arab states to the north and the sub-continent and beyond to the east. The city-emirate’s growth spurt, along with that of neighbouring emirates and countries, is founded partly on a reliably successful concept of free zones. Dubai successfully pioneered the concept of free zones and has developed mature, credible and sustainable international and regional businesses in its initial free zones Media City, Internet City, Dubai Airport Free Zone and Jebel Ali Free Zone. There are now 12 free zones in development around the UAE and many more across the Middle East. Foreign investors in free zones are entitled to 100 per cent foreign ownership of the enterprise and 100 per cent import and export tax exemptions.
Dubai Internet (above) and Media Cities have
attracted business to the south of the city
Plush, landscapedMedia City
Media City is has its own offices, cafes,internet service, bars and hotels
The freezones are hugely popular. Businesses have rushed to locate in Internet City and Media City, thanks to plush new facilities, perks such as an uncensored internet service and the region’s proximity to the new business and residential centre of Dubai Marina which is fast rising from the desert. Some 2,600 companies have bases in these tax-free zones with Internet City hosting regional offices for Microsoft, Dell, Siemens, Oracle and IBM as well as regional online media powerhouses.
More than 80 per cent of Dubai's 1.5 million residents are from overseas, mainly Britain, India, Pakistan, Iran and Lebanon. Dubai’s population increase tells the story, with the number of residents growing steeply in the last few years, especially during 2004. GDP per capita also grew 16.7 per cent in that year. To make such growth sustainable, the city emirate has continually adopted various strategies to increase the efficiency of existing infrastructure and to maintain and improve the quality of civic services. The city fathers are also seeking to increase infrastructure in order to serve anticipated population levels in 2010 and beyond.
The freezones may have helped to kickstart Dubai’s growth, but the problems of creating a sustainable urban environment in a arid desert region falls on the Government of the UAE and of Dubai, and on its ruling Maktoum family. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum is the driving force behind Dubai’s huge investment in infrastructure, transport and property. Modern Dubai, as the local wisdom goes, is a tale of the vision of its late Ruler, Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum. Current ruler Sheikh Mohammed is committed to his father's dream of making Dubai a world-class city. Other ruling family members are instrumental in controlling Dubai’s development, for example the developers Nakheel, Dubai Properties and Emaar, which between them are responsible for many of Dubai’s major development and urban design projects.
Dubai Municipality, a government department, is responsible for infrastructure and urban planning across the emirate, but has little authority within the massive ‘private’ Emaar or Nakheel-owned development projects such as Dubailand or Dubai Waterfront, which may be as large as 100 square kilometres.
Construction movesrelentlessly onwardsand upwards
Dubai Municiality oversees development inmany areas of Dubai, but not inside projectscontrolled by 'private' state-backed developers
Dubai Municipality iscompleting new public spaceslike Zabeel Park
The UAE as a whole, and specific emirates in particular, have an array of bodies to answer to when it comes to masterplanning. Dubai Municipality (DM) has been instrumental in the transformation of Dubai emirate into a modern, efficient commercial and tourist centre. In view of the expected increase in Dubai’s population by the year 2011 to more than double the present number and the consequent increase in the number of vehicles, DM has prepared a comprehensive transportation master plan for traffic flow in the emirate, commencing in 1991, with the medium-term phase of the plan culminating in 2001 and the long-term plan in 2011. Key aspects of the plan are construction of new roads between Dubai and Sharjah, construction of a ring-road around Dubai, replanning of traffic circulation, especially the flow of traffic crossing the Creek and construction of many more parking lots. With the number of fatal traffic accidents in Dubai alone rising throughout Dubai - the monthly average figure increased from 17 deaths a month last year to 19 deaths a month this year – it’s clear that either improved roads or improved driving standards are a paramount concern in the emirate.
Too many planners…
Abu Dhabi, capital of the UAE and the emirate adjacent to Dubai in the south, has its own Municipality and Town Planning Department that has also prepared a comprehensive development plan for Abu Dhabi emirate to be implemented by the year 2010, including a number of projects to be carried out in cooperation with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The plan, many aspects of which are starting to take shape, is designed to reduce pressure on the capital by developing and populating outlying areas.
In recent years significant improvements have been made to the road network in and around Abu Dhabi to improve traffic flow. In particular major work on the Eastern Ring Road has now reached its final phase. Among other bodies instrumental in the mix of UAE development is the Roads Transport Authority (RTA) UAE.
Construction work nver stops across Dubai and the UAE. Cranes are visible everywhere in Dubai and have been jokingly nicknamed the 'national bird' of Dubai. According to statistics, about 125,000 tower cranes are operating worldwide. Industry experts cautiously estimate that 15 to 25 per cent of them are in Dubai.
A Dh 6 billion (Dh 1 million = US$272,000) construction plan for 438 commercial buildings in Abu Dhabi is also under way. The Department of Social Services and Commercial Buildings, otherwise known as the Khalifa Committee, is implementing the plan and has indicated that an additional 632 multi-million dirham projects are in the pipeline. Since the Committee’s inception, it has completed more than 6,000 projects throughout the capital at an estimated cost of Dh 26 billion. These include about 74,000 housing units. In 1998 the Department constructed 219 commercial buildings. The houses built by the Department are given to nationals through an easy-loan scheme. The loans division of the Department has also advanced billions of dirhams to nationals to build houses as well as commercial buildings since 1990.
Downtown Dubai will have theworld's tallest tower, Burj Dubai
The Business Bay projectwill cover 64 million sq feet
At Dubai Marina, the towerscome up and up and up...
One hundred and nine commercial buildings, comprising 3,176 residential units, were built during the first half of 1999 at a cost of Dh 983 million. The Department is working on 20 other major projects in various parts of Abu Dhabi. Work on 938 smaller projects is also in progress throughout the emirate. As a result of this activity rents have fallen significantly in the large number of high-rise buildings that have been built in Abu Dhabi.
The Ministry of Public Works and Housing, which has been actively developing infrastructure in the UAE, is overseeing numerous projects throughout the country, including construction and maintenance of 13 mosques in Fujairah, 16 mosques in Sharjah, Umm al-Qaiwain Hospital, Fujairah Hospital, Saif bin Ghubash Hospital in Ras al-Khaimah, the Ministry of Finance and Industry premises at Al Khubeira Palace in Abu Dhabi, the Abu Dhabi Radio and TV building, the Health Care Center in Umm al-Qaiwain and three health care centres in Dubai. Twenty-seven schools, three kindergartens and two mosques in Ajman are also being refurbished, in addition to four mosques in Ras al-Khaimah, two mosques in Umm al-Qaiwain, as well as annual maintenance works on buildings in all areas. Fifty-six large projects are at the planning stage and 80 others are under review.
Dubai and the future
Fast running out of oil, which now accounts for just 6 per cent of its gross domestic product, Dubai is looking elsewhere for a secure future. The Dubai government does not want to depend on its oil reserves, largely believed to be exhausted by 2010, and has successfully diversified its economy. Real estate now accounts for over 10 per cent of the UAE's GDP. Sheikh Mohammed is transforming Dubai into a massive business-cum-leisure park on a very large scale – but even he has recently put the brakes on, asking for a ‘slow down’ of projects across Dubai as he ‘feels that there is too much going on all at once.
'We’ve been instructed to stop offering new projects for the time being and get started on the construction of the projects we have already agreed,’ says a spokesman for megaproject Dubailand, quoted widely in the local press in February 2006. According to a report in thebusinessonline, the Dubailand project - a $19bn theme park twice the size of Disneyworld in Florida - involves the creation of a city for several million people. Hundreds of luxury hotels are being built and many hundreds of thousands of flats and luxury homes aimed at housing the rich, the retired and the tourists.
Full-scale replicas of the Eiffel Tower, the Egyptian Sphinx and the Great Pyramid of Giza, not to mention two Taj Mahals, are planned to rise from Dubai’s sands. The tallest hotel ever built to date – the seven-star Burj Al Arab – has become a Dubai icon, represented on car numberplates and hundreds of postcards and posters. The world’s soon-to-be-tallest office block, the Burj Dubai, is currently rising from its site in Downtown Dubai.
Real estate and development
The machines off Jumeirah beach are laying the foundations for houses to be built on three of the world’s largest man-made palm-shaped islands. The islands will support luxury hotels, residential villas, water homes, shoreline apartments, marinas, water theme parks, restaurants, shopping malls, sports facilities, health spas, cinemas and diving sites. A gold ingot will be dropped in to the water by developer Nakheel to encourage potential divers to explore the man-made wrecks that will deposited underwater to add to the fun. The World project comprises man-made islands shaped liked countries that are being sold for millions of dollars.
One of the reasons for the recent boom in real estate is the April 2006 clarification of a law that allows non-nationals of the UAE to own property (but not land) in Dubai (freehold and 99 year leases are sold to buyers with ownership actually remaining with private companies). Demand is currently outstripping supply and rents have skyrocketed, although it is widely predicted that this will slow as thousands of new rental properties come on stream from 2006 onwards. Despite the new rulings, legislation in is still ‘flexible’ as the rights of tenants and landowners are based on shaky mix of European and, increasingly, Shariah law, especially where interest payments and inheritance is concerned. Many contracts and tenancy agreements do not stand up to the standards of international law in the eyes of expatriates used to a relatively clear-cut EC or North American system.
Planning afterthoughts
Large tracts of the desert scrub have already been given over to upmarket ‘planned communities’ like Emirates Hills, Dubai. But the lack of central planning control means that the planning takes a back seat to the realities. The planned Parallel Roads Project in Dubai is a case in point. Cutting through the so called green paradise of Emirates Hills, only two years after its development, the Roads Transport Authority, another body featuring in the myriad planning mix, insists that the roads will be built despite concerns shown by residents in Emirates Hills about the building of two highways through their neighbourhood. The Parallel Roads Project aims to improve two new north-south corridors or east and west parallel roads between Shaikh Zayed Road and Al Khail Road.
The roads cross the city from the Trade Centre area on the north to the Abu Dhabi border on the south. Mattar Al Tayer, Executive Director of the RTA, said that the project will begin in April and will be completed in 2009. The east and west parallel roads consist of a minimum of three lanes in each direction, intersected by a series of east-west principal arterials and other minor and local arterial roads.
Compared with the urban development of major Indian cities like Delhi and Mumbai, which are currently reeling following decisions by the Indian Supreme Court to allow authorities to remove 20 years worth of ‘unplanned structures’ and ‘encroachments’ within a year, the ‘unplanned’ nature of Dubai’s development seems negligible. But driving around the sprawling city, watching ever more circling roads taking shape overhead, I’m left with the distinct feeling that ‘so-called’ masterplans in Dubai stop abruptly at the site boundaries, where either the Municipality’s jurisdiction, or that of another developer, takes over. True masterplaning in Dubai is going to be a game of filling in the gaps left by the standalone development projects and the road and transport infrastructure lobby – both of which are largely controlled by different bodies.
Dubai Municipality is not responsible for ensuring that developer-led planned communities such have adequate provision for policing, health, schooling and public transport. Residents, keen to buy in the few zones that permit freehold occupation, ‘only look at one house to the left or right,’ says Dr Okeil, admissions tutor at the British University in Dubai’s environmental design course. ‘If they expect the price to rice 25 per cent, what do residents care, or the speculators that are snapping up the new homes?’
Policy for building regulation exists and is strongly enforced in Dubai, says Dr Okeil. Dubai Municipality sets codes for thermal insulation and other building practices in the areas over which it has jurisdiction, and has taken a lead in building user-friendly parks and planning sustainable regeneration schemes in the older downtown areas. Sadly, its suggested codes do not necessarily need to apply to projects built by private developers such as Nakeheel and Emaar, he adds.
Projects like Ski Dubai have put the city on the map - but how many snow parks does one desert city need? It may soon have three...
Dubai Marina is the hub of the new city - or at least one of the many new cities - that are rising across the emirate and beyond
Older areas of the city like Mankhoolremain a maze of neon-lit supermarkets, apartments and parking lots
Sustainability takes a back seat
Most urban and architectural professionals that I met and spoke with in Dubai agreed that for far too many developments, sustainability and environmental awareness take a back seat to speed of development and sale.
‘I do see this changing,’ says Dr Okeil. He cities such positive moves as Atkins support for the environmental design course at BuiD, and declares that there is growing awareness across the profession and within the planning bodies that sustainability is crucial.
There is little regulation to enforce sustainability practices in Dubai. Voluntary codes do exist, but they are not popularly practiced. ‘There is no incentive,’ says Dr Okeil. He cites the oil crisis of the 1970s that caused European governments to tighten their building and construction regulations, but with locals in the GCC paying a third less than the mainly expatriate community for water and power, there is little incentive indeed for the developers to spend more on expensive sustainability practices. Its commonplace to demand shading for car parking, for example, but shaded walkways for people are very much an afterthought.
Peter Cottingham of Al Khatib Crackell architects concurs. ‘Our clients have been granted pieces of land and a remit to develop it in certain ways. For infrastructure, there are codes. Dubai Municipality has guidelines for roads and signage. But we also find that it’s difficult to assess whether things will work when they have never been done before.’
Value-added features like thos associated with sustainability have to come to be appreciated, so their value will accrue, says Cottingham, they can’t be legislated for. He stresses that things are changing. ‘Now we look much harder at the connectivity with local infrastructure and other developments, unlike two years ago.’ He adds that although development in Dubai may seem like a goldmine, actually the monies available per square foot in Dubai are far less than those expected for upmarket projects in London.
New ‘planned’ residential and commercial communities are emerging all over the city, and Dubai Municipality has set of a commitment to a kind of sustainability in the coming years. Dubai’s road network has more than doubled in volume in 10 years (1995-2004), a spokesman says, and of this more than 30 per cent of the increase has been in the form of eight-lane carriageways. Creative measures are under consideration (tolls and congestion fees, for example) to provide incentives to encourage reduced road use outside planned mixed-use communities. Dubai Metro has contracted an international consortium to build a 69.7 km driverless metro with 43 stations, with the first phase set to complete by September 2009.
Resources are also on the agenda. Electricity generation and consumption has also more than doubled in 10 years (1995-2004), as has water usage. Water is sourced mainly from aquifers and desalination plants, and nuclear-powered desalination is also under consideration. See Dubai's growing thirst for resources for more on the resources issues across the UAE.
