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Housing Inspections from Tomorrow
Adel Arafah

31 January 2009
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ABU DHABI - The Abu Dhabi Municipality is launching a campaign to evict bachelors sharing apartments in residential areas from Sunday.

The campaign, which will also focus on illegal construction and partitioning of rooms, will be carried out in coordination with the Public Prosecution.

Bachelors are not allowed to live in apartments in residential areas which are meant only for families.

The campaign, which will last for more than a week, will be extended depending on the results, the civic body said.

Khalifa Al Mazroui, Director-General of the municipality, said the civic body has been monitoring the practices of landlords who allowed bachelors to live in buildings where families live.

Violations noticed include partitioning of rooms in flats to accommodate more number of bachelors.

Al Mazroui said they have observed that more and more bachelors are moving into the residential areas.

“The campaign is aimed at preserving the image of the city, which is an integral part of the strategic plan aimed to make Abu Dhabi a tourist destination.”

The campaign has two objectives: end illegal partitioning of rooms in flats and villas, and oust bachelors from residential areas.

Dubai will be next to do this

Eventually, this development will simply only tolerate the families and double income expats in residential areas. The normal bachelor expat will not be able to pay, let alone live in these villa's and apartments anymore.

This is a troublesome development if you ask me.
They really are aiming for the high net worth individuals that are able to remain bachelor and live in the city center.

I as a bachelor, who maybe don't even want to get married in our developed world, is not able to buy or live in a residential villa? If I can afford it in time...?

Whats that for crazy policy!

I was quite amazed reading the article too.

One question: What is defined as a "residential area?" I have not yet seen any clearing zoning by the authorities. Practically every area has a decent mix of residential, commercial, education facilities. So how is one to know what is clearly demarcated "residential zone"? Wouldnt that generally be the whole of the city? So do they want to kick all the bachelors out of town?

I find the whole thing stupid. You should not mess around with social setup of a city. By segregating the population and herding them into different areas, you are creating more problems.

Simplest solution - slash the rents. In Oman, where accom. is much affordable I had never seen many bachelors and families herded into flats the way it is here.

They are trying to force the 'batchelors' (for that read any single non family person) into renting some of the empty studio and 1 bedroom accommodation. The problem is they are asking such ridiculously high rents that no-one can afford it. What then?

Labour camp anyone?



Knight

Dubai Knight wrote:They are trying to force the 'batchelors' (for that read any single non family person) into renting some of the empty studio and 1 bedroom accommodation. The problem is they are asking such ridiculously high rents that no-one can afford it. What then?

Knight

If thats so they probably anticipate rent to fall like a pack of cards. The only way to sustain the high figures is to create more demand by forcing bachelors to take up full flats. Most bachelors not being able to afford is what will not make it work. You'll just end up with a whole bunch of frustrated people.

Even now, most of our employees spend so much time discussing, finding and stressed up about accomodation issues, it significantly affects work output. some of them forced to stay outside city limits spend so much time in travelling, they end up tired and difficult to get proper work done from them.

michaeldubai wrote:

Dubai Knight wrote:They are trying to force the 'batchelors' (for that read any single non family person) into renting some of the empty studio and 1 bedroom accommodation. The problem is they are asking such ridiculously high rents that no-one can afford it. What then?

Knight

If thats so they probably anticipate rent to fall like a pack of cards. The only way to sustain the high figures is to create more demand by forcing bachelors to take up full flats. Most bachelors not being able to afford is what will not make it work. You'll just end up with a whole bunch of frustrated people.

Even now, most of our employees spend so much time discussing, finding and stressed up about accomodation issues, it significantly affects work output. some of them forced to stay outside city limits spend so much time in travelling, they end up tired and difficult to get proper work done from them.

This has actually been going on for the past 8 years, the traffic problems from Sharjah to Dubai significantly increased when they closed the Mumza Park turn off, that was almost 8 years to the day.