Strategically placed beehives within the premises, small-scale wood farms to cultivate and harvest wood in an environmentally friendly manner and creating natural greenery to improve air quality are among a new set of ‘close-to-nature’ features within residential projects offered by Dubai developers to woo wealthy but environmentally-conscious buyers, industry insiders said.
Besides offering a harmonious coexistence with nature, the innovative initiatives also help resident welfare associations to a steady income stream through the sale of organic honey and timber.
Wealthy investors, especially from the West, who love the comfort and safety of Dubai, but also seek the greenery and environment of their home markets, are said to be lapping up residential units in such projects, paying hefty premiums.
This, in turn, is encouraging more and more developers to make heavy investments in natural landscaping, developing lakes and ensuring sufficient green cover to increase both marketability and pricing of their housing projects.
“The goal is to promote a sustainable environment by creating a harmonious coexistence between nature and the residents,” Abhishek Sharma, Founder and CEO of Seabeats – the Dubai-based company which is implementing the beehive initiative in an upcoming project in the emirate, which it is co-developing with a leading real estate company, told Arabian Business.
“The new features ‘naturally’ complement other factors such as safety and high quality of life that Dubai is recognised for globally, helping real estate companies to charge extra premium for residential units in such projects,” he said.
Besides Seabeat’s project with beehives and its high-end residential project in Greece where it is implementing the wood farm initiative, Majid Al Futtaim’s Ghaf Woods project, which offers residents a seamless indoor-outdoor lifestyle, improving air quality through the use of natural greenery throughout the community premises, is among the projects offering ‘close-to-nature’ features.
A senior executive at Huspy, the Dubai-based real estate consultancy and mortgage firm, said the ‘natural’ element helped the Ghaf Woods project to sell 800 units in a matter of hours.
Dubai’s eco-friendly real estate projects
Industry players said the new trend of nature-focused community living is fast gaining traction with buyers, especially from expats who are willing to pay extra bucks for such living.
“At Huspy, we are seeing a clear trend in Dubai’s real estate projects that are focused on nature, geared towards providing residents a good quality of life through outdoor living,” Samir Vissram, Property Consultant at Huspy, told Arabian Business.
“Innovation is also the key, as Ghaf Woods, as a concept, is geared towards helping reduce soil erosion and conserve water while providing shade,” he said.
Vissram said the Ghaf Woods is the first of its kind community that is helping combat high temperatures that is witnessed in places like Dubai, as there will be more trees than residents.
“The demand for such projects continues to grow, especially as Dubai attracts new residents from around the world,” the Huspy senior executive said.
He also cited Aldar’s Athlon as another example of a unique “active living” project which incorporates wellness and exercise into the community’s day-to-day life.
“The project, consisting of more than 1,000 villas, was sold out in 48 hours, generating AED 4.1 billion in revenue to the developer,” he said.
Sustainable real estate trends
Samer Chehab, Founder and CEO of Propertyguru.ae, a proptech which works exclusively with some of the leading Dubai-based real estate companies for marketing their off-plan projects, said developers are of late investing heavily to create an environment that is not just liveable, but takes into account best practices in sustainability.
“We are now seeing projects that focus on natural landscaping, developing lakes and ensuring sufficient green cover within the premises, besides the use of solar and even implementation of electric chargers for vehicles,” Chehab told Arabian Business.
Seabeats top executive Sharma said their projects also prioritise the use of renewable energy sources to power its operations, reducing its carbon footprint and supporting the transition to a greener future.
“Additionally, the beehive and wood farm projects will collaborate with local communities and organisations to raise awareness about sustainable forestry practices and the importance of preserving natural resources,” he said.
Both Sharma and Chehab said all of these matters to home buyers, especially wealthy investors from the west who love the comfort and safety of Dubai, but seek the greenery and environment of their home markets.
Chehab said projects like Al Barari, Akoya Oxygen, MBR City, and Damac Hills are some of the most attractive for those seeking environmentally friendly communities.
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