Dubai: Dubai Municipality has given the go-ahead for the implementation of the Desert Rose City, a smart and sustainable satellite city project that was announced in 2014.
Hussain Nasser Lootah, director-general of Dubai Municipality, on Monday said in a press release that the project has been given the green signal in line with the vision of His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai.
He also announced the formation of a committee headed by Abdullah Raffia, assistant director-general for Engineering and Planning Sector, to supervise the studies, designs and the construction of the satellite city and follow up its implementation at all levels.
Consisting of building clusters in the shape of a desert flower, the Dh30 billion mixed-used development will come up on an area of 14,000 hectares on the Dubai-Al Ain Road.
Once complete, it is expected to accommodate 160,000 residents who will work and live in the city that will be surrounded by a green belt.
There will be 20,000 plots for building luxury homes for Emiratis and 10,000 affordable housing units for expatriates. The city will rely on its own resources to provide means of transport and communications, energy consumption and recycled water. It will have resources to provide more than 40,000 cubic meters of potable water.
Dawood Al Hajeri, director of the Planning Department, said the Desert Rose City will be a sustainable city that produces 200 megawatts of electricity using solar panels on the rooftops of homes and other buildings.
The project will be implemented progressively, complying with the emirate’s green building code, and will have eco-friendly solutions like green roofs to mitigate temperatures and purify the air from pollutants.
Al Hajeri said that the importance of the green building project lies in reducing carbon emissions and improving the internal environment and air quality, thereby improving the health of the community. The city will also have sustainable transport solutions that will further reduce the carbon emission.
The first phase of the project is expected to be complete before Dubai hosts the World Expo 2020.
