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A housing scheme for expatriate singles

DUBAI — Expatriates living in shared accommodations have a reason to smile as Dubai Municipality is planning to construct residential buildings for specific categories of workers and professionals in Al Qusais and Al Quoz areas.

The construction of the accommodations, which will house different categories of expatriate workforce, mainly from the services sector, according to specified criteria, is aimed at maintaining a balanced demography and minimise social impact in a mixed workforce environment.

Abdullah Abdulrahim, Director of Planning and Survey Department at Dubai Municipality said the new buildings would solve the problem of unhygienic and overcrowded shared accommodations, and remove inconvenience that families living in the neighbourhood experience.

Speaking to Khaleej Times, Mr Abdulrahim noted that the proposed accommodations are not labour camps. “These accommodations are meant for employees, both skilled and qualified professionals, of different types of establishments. We already have such housing in Al Qusais and Al Quoz, the plan is to construct such additional buildings,” he said.

According to Mr Abdulrahim, workforce employed in hotels, bakeries and supermarkets, and salesmen normally rent apartments closer to their places of work and live in shared apartments in inappropriately large numbers affecting the lives of those in the neighbourhood.

Another category comprises highly qualified bachelors who also depend on sharing accommodation. Mr Abdulrahim said that special buildings would be constructed to suit their budgets. “The new plan will curb this phenomena of overcrowding and provide the appropriate living conditions to both the workers/professionals as well as families,” he added.

He said the municipality is currently preparing appropriate plans in co-ordination with other concerned departments to execute the project as soon as possible. He noted that earlier experiments with such accommodations, carried out to evaluate the success of the experiment, have proved to be a great success.

Mr Abdulrahim added that the areas earmarked for the project are ideal for the purpose and will encompass all services and required infrastructure. He said that the civic body will co-ordinate with its Public Transport Department to also provide transportation facilities to the proposed new residential areas.

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