Dubai Municipality undertakes green projects worth Dh463 million

Dubai Dubai Municipality will spend Dh463 million to carry out 109 landscape and beautification projects during the next four years, an official said.

The greenery projects include development of six existing public parks, setting up of 21 neighbourhood parks, 23 community facilities, four pond parks and several other beautification projects.

Rashad Bukhash, Director of General Projects Department at the Dubai Municipality said the upcoming projects would add a total of 113 hectares of greenery to the urban landscape.

"We aim to increase the per capita share of greenery to 23.4 square metres and raise the total cultivated land to 3.15 per cent of the total land by 2011 as part of the Strategic Plan of Dubai Municipality (2007-2011)," added Bukhash.

He was speaking at the first Gulf Landscape Architecture and Design Award Conference, (GLADAC 2008) held on Monday at Knowledge Village in Dubai

Bukhash said that expansion of public parks would cover all the six existing parks including Jumeirah Beach Park, Mushrif Park, Safa Park, Mamzar Park, Zabeel Park and the Creek Park.

The new neighbourhood parks, which will include facilities such as jogging track, play-grounds for a variety of games, water features, walkways, shaded sitting areas, include Safouh Park, Mirdif Park, Mizhar 2 Park, Nad Al Sheba Park, Al Barsha Pond Park and the Al Qusais Pond Park

The new community facilities on the cards are football ground and courts for tennis, basketball and volleyball, apart from soft landscape, walkways, shaded sitting areas, and children's play areas in different parts of Dubai such as Al Qusais 3, Nad Al Hamr and Abu Hail.

Other beautification projects include the Port Saeed Plaza to be built at the cost of Dh12 million.

Dr Diane Menzies, President of the International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA), which organised the event in a Gulf city for the first time and Ingrid Duchhart, Senior Lecturer at Department of Landscape Architecture of Wageningen University, Amsterdam, also addressed the conference.

The conference brought together officials from renowned organisations as well as an audience of up to 200 industry-related professionals and delegates hailing from all corners of the globe.

"We, at Dubai Municipality, are pleased to associate ourselves with IFLA in organising this prestigious event for the first time in the region," said Bukhash.

Dr Menzies said GLADAC 2008 recognised the landscape architecture industry's immense growth and development within Dubai, the UAE and the GCC region.

"This event marks an historic first for the Middle East region."