Dubai : Unpopular district cooling charges in Discovery Gardens could soon be a thing of the past with proposals to install cooling meters for apartments, XPRESS can exclusively reveal.
Nakheel currently runs the maintenance of the buildings, but once Discovery moves into housing association control under the new Strata laws, owners will have the option to install new meters.
Many residents have already contacted a community management company, Place Community Management, to learn about the feasibility of the option. Michael Ryall, a director at the firm, said the meters would cost around Dh2,000 and could be installed "within months".
The payment of the meters will have to be met by the owners who can either pay the lumpsum amount upfront or sign up to a leasing system with the company that runs the meters.
Residents currently pay Dh8.7 per square foot towards cooling charges and that forms part of the building service charge. "Nakheel had sent out their building budgets for the last financial year and apartment owners were shocked at the cost of district cooling. There is no incentive for people to reduce consumption since they get charged a flat rate based on total usage," said Ryall.
"With a meter, people will know what they are using and that will result in a drop in consumption because they will be billed for what they use," he said.
Ajmal Khan, a Pakistani in the Mediterranean cluster, said. "I turn off the AC during the day when I'm not in the apartment, but some people have it running 24 hours a day, seven days a week. That costs me around Dh500 or more a month in AC costs."
Briton John Hunt from Mogul cluster said, "People should only be billed for what they use. Nothing more, nothing less."
A comment from Nakheel was not immediately available.
