Dubai Sustainable City Construction Underway

Diamond Developers has begun construction on the $300 million Sustainable City located just outside of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. They expect to have one hundred units ready by the end of the year, and the Sustainable City project will be finished by mid-2016. Residents who purchase units in the development will not be subjected to any service charges, maintenance fees, or community fees, and they will also be given a golf cart and a subsidy to purchase another electric car. The development will be the first self-sufficient city in the world in terms of resources, transportation, and energy.

There are currently between 500 and 600 workers building the city’s villas each day. At a rate of one villa completed per day, Diamond Developers is expecting to have 90 units finished by mid-June. The residential portion of the city will be finished by mid-2015. The villas are being built with precast concrete blocks to reduce the overall waste on the project. At least 20 percent of the construction area of the development will use eco-friendly materials.

In addition to using precast concrete blocks, the Sustainable City has many other green features. All villas are directed against the sun so there will be no direct sunlight, and all walking areas are shaded. Each villa is designed to reduce resident’s energy and water bills by 50 percent over other units in the area, and each house will have solar panels on the roof. The city’s solar farms will cover 600,000 square feet and solar power will provide 50 percent of the city’s cooling energy. The city will have 10 MW peak solar production, 2,700 residents and a daily population of 6,000. Also, all of the sewage water will be recycled and 60 percent of the project will be landscaped.

Wassim Adlouni, a board member at Diamond Developers, recently announced that his company would like to use the Sustainable City as a platform to build other cities in the rest of the Middle East and North Africa. Adlouni went on to say, “The biggest challenge here and in other countries is that the end users are always looking to re-sell their units and get the benefits for the short term.” To protect against this challenge, Diamond Developers will not allow any buyers to sell their units until they are completed. They expect the majority of their buyers to be end-users or ones who plan to rent their unit after the city is completed.