Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
MARKET TREND<br />
solar-powered parking lots, and organic farm, a green<br />
school, biodome greenhouses and a community centre. It<br />
is surrounded by a “green buffer zone” consisting of 2,500<br />
trees that acts as a natural filter system to the air coming<br />
into the area. There will also be a fully solar-powered<br />
hotel, the Middle East’s first net-zero energy hotel, built<br />
within the Sustainable City.<br />
The special zone will be a car-free one, aims to be energy<br />
self-reliant and recover its costs in just four years.<br />
Sustainable City is Dubai’s first residential solar project<br />
and produces green energy for more than 500 villas. The<br />
500 villas which were fitted with solar panels last year were<br />
said to be capable of generating 1.2 megawatts of energy,<br />
enough to sustain itself and also feed the surplus energy to<br />
the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority’s grid that can<br />
later on be used to supply over 200 villas with clean<br />
renewable energy. Once the solar panel installation is<br />
completed in Sustainable City, it is believed that it would<br />
generate 10MW of power at peak capacity. Even the<br />
cycling machines in the gym are hooked up to the<br />
electricity grid and produce power each time someone<br />
pedals furiously.<br />
Apart from Sustainable City, there’s also Healthcare City<br />
that has wellness residential projects in the pipeline.<br />
Government policy is also shifting to align itself with these<br />
wellness communities and to further stimulate their<br />
development. One of the key themes of the Expo 2020 is<br />
sustainability. In Dubai, the government has introduced<br />
“Dubai Happiness Agenda” which creates a framework that<br />
uses smart solutions towards promoting higher overall levels<br />
of wellbeing. Recently, it announced the implementation of<br />
battery-operated autonomous pods to facilitate internal<br />
transportation. Projects like the Sustainable City will go a<br />
long way to helping Dubai reach its target of ensuring that by<br />
2030, 25 per cent of its energy will be clean energy.<br />
The good news for Dubai and other countries is that the<br />
global wellness real estate market is set to continue to<br />
grow rapidly and possibly become a $180 billion market by<br />
2022. Suddenly, that energy-guzzling penthouse in the<br />
heart of a messy urban sprawl might not look all that<br />
attractive anymore.<br />
25<br />
EQUITY
Change language