Demands focused on improving infrastructure services, house maintenance

Abu Dhabi, 15 June 2015:

The Abu Dhabi City Municipality, in cooperation with its strategic partners, has recently held its 18th Forum (Al Multaqa) with the residents of Al Falah with the aim of boosting direct communication with various community segments at their domiciles, identifying their needs of basic services, and heeding to their suggestions & views about the improvement of the municipal system. The event also aimed at acquainting them with the projects undertaken in their locality, and cementing the partnership with them in developing concepts & plans for uplifting public services, improving the standard of living and upgrading public facilities.

These forums are held in implementation of the vision of the municipal system and its commitment to continuously interact with community members, and continuing the drive of development projects which contributing to the overall development and improvement of the quality of life in the Emirate in line with the vision of Abu Dhabi Government 2030.

The gathering was attended by Engineer Eisa Mubarak Al Mazroui, Acting Executive Director of Infrastructure and Municipal Assets Sector, and a host of Executive Directors of the Municipalities together with representatives of strategic partners in local departments and entities, employees of the Municipality and a large crowd of city residents.

In an opening speech to the forum, Engineer Eisa reiterated the commitment of the prudent leadership to urge officials to meet with citizens, heed to their requests, and explain the vision of the Government in general and the Municipality in particular. "The objective of these forums is to uplift the caliber of services, and seek to come up with a common vision for the present and future of the area aligned with Abu Dhabi Vision 2030, and the strategy of the municipal system as well as the Municipality aimed at providing the highest services and facilities, offering means of decent living, and inculcating the civilized standards in all projects & facilities to meet the aspirations of residents.

"Thanks to the support of our strategic partners, the Municipality is seeking to make these forums a genuine platform for sharing concepts, suggestions, identifying the needs of citizens & responding to their queries, share plans, and draw up the future maps to meet their ambitions and needs of services and facilities at world-class standards. The Municipality pins much confidence in the views and ideas expressed by citizens and their role in supporting and correcting the path of the municipal plans, besides launching new initiatives originating from these joint forums on which future road maps will be built.

"The Municipality firmly believes that concerted efforts and the engagement of residents in these forums is the proper way to realize the vision of our government, meet the needs of residents and contribute to the improvement of services and infrastructure as well as public & recreational facilities and the requisites of decent living. The Municipality therefore attaches top attention to the support of all community spectrums and eagerly follows up such interaction," added Al Mazroui.

He thanked the residents of Al Falah city and all representatives of strategic partners in attendance, and paid tribute to their prime role in realizing the objectives of the forum.

Current and future projects

In the same context, the Municipality made a detailed presentation highlighting key development and public services projects currently underway or set to be undertaken in future including upgrading various aspects of the infrastructure and public services.

It also reviewed the works accomplished at Al Falah City in 2012 - 2013 such as internal roads maintenance in respect of projects received from developers where work started in October 2013 and is set to be completed in October 2015.

As for the future development projects at Al Falah city, the plan envisages the construction of roads and infrastructure to cover widening of Road A and Road C, adding a roundabout on Road D, erecting light signals and two junctions. Works in the project will start in August 2015 and end in July 2016.

Questionnaire

The Municipality has commissioned an interactive questionnaire to assess the key aspirations and views of residents of Al Falah as regards the level of services and infrastructure in place where it became evident that demands focused on public parks and recreational facilities in the city. It revealed that the provision of recreational facilities achieved a rating of 40% from respondents, and the same result was achieved as regards the provision of public parks. The construction of municipal centers attracted 33% of support from respondents, children playgrounds got the support of 27%, foodstuffs distribution centers 26%, ladies club 20%, communal houses 19%, customer service centre 19%, a walk 17%, mini residential parks 17%, sport halls 16%, nursery 14%, marriage hall 13%, maintenance of traffic & directional signage 11%, community center 11%, and outdoor playgrounds 11%.

Current and Future Status

Discussions also covered the current and future position of the city. It was noted that the city has 15 mosques now and work is underway 6 new mosques as a matter of urgency, and there is a plan to build 21 other mosques. As regards retail outlets, the city has 7 commercial facilities and the plan is to build two more. There are 10 malls now and two others will be built in future.

An urgent plan is being undertaken to construct a medical clinic and two clinics are planned in future. The city has one school and kindergarten, and there is an urgent plan to build three schools and future plans include the construction of eight schools.

A future plans also includes the construction of Residents Council and Marriage Hall in addition to a petrol station as a matter of urgency and civil defence center in future.

Addressing

A detailed presentation was made about the latest developments of the Addressing System and the key aspects of the system. The Municipality stated that 185 street signs have so far been erected on main streets out of 268 signs to be installed i.e. a completion rate of about 69%. It has also erected 11488 bases for poles needed to support signs bearing street names; a completion rate of up to 95%. 60646 brackets providing back support to signs have been erected and the completion rate has reached 92%. About 59848 number plates have been installed with a completion rate of 91%, and 59594 Quick Reference Codes have been installed in the Addressing signs recording a completion rate of 73%, and so far 53979 of survey components have been installed together with details of number plates and QR codes.

Areas in which addressing number plates including QR codes have been installed are 100% ready for positioning sites using map service online, and enabling the dispatch of the site through various social media means.

The Municipality also reviewed areas in which street name plates and addressing number plates have been manufactured and installed which are 100% ready for use, adding that a review is possible online via (http//myabudhabi.net/search).

Strategic Partners

As part of the forum, strategic partners made presentations highlighting their plans and projects at Al Falah starting with a presentation by Al Dar Properties spotlighting Al Falah Complex project and the latest developments of the project which spans an area of 12,005,000 square meters. It was stated that 4857 villas have been completed and handed over to the competent parties, and 4214 villas have been handed over to citizens. Six malls have been completed in each village bringing the total number of retail outlets to 60 in addition to the construction of 10 malls in each district bring the total number of shops to 42 shops. The Sheikh Khalifa Mosque in Village 1 had been 100% completed and operated in 2013, and discussions covered the guarantee period of the project and a summary of pending works with the developer such as designing and undertaking landscaping works of Al Falah project at villages 1-5 comprising landscaping works of main and subsidiary streets, parks, gardens, recreational areas and the public park within the center of the project.

The Department also made a presentation of its services covering a study about roads network at the New Al Falah, surrounding roads, improvements of the existing network, flyovers such as Suwaihan Street, express roads and the partial closure of Rawdat Al Reef R/A. It also reviewed the existing and future services of public transport, and bus routes to serve the New Al Falah which are expected to be accomplished by the end of this year 2015.

The General Authority of Islamic Affairs and Endowments explained in its presentation that Al Falah has one mosque and 14 temporary mosques in addition to a center for memorizing of the Quran at Sheikh Khalifa Mosque. It also reported that there was a project for designing two mosques in addition to another mosque currently under construction.

Suggestions and Views

Residents of Al Falah made a number of suggestions highlighted by the standard of living in the city which focused on the improvement of infrastructure of the city to keep pace with the scale of development witnessed. They also called for attaching more attention to the maintenance of houses as villas are need of comprehensive maintenance. They also expressed a need for a health center, more frequent police patrols, and allowing the building of additions to the existing buildings to cope with the needs and numbers of family members.

It is noteworthy that the Abu Dhabi City Municipality had held 17 forums in Abu Dhabi city and suburban areas including Khalifa city, Mohammed bin Zayed city, Shakhbout city, Baniyas, Airport and Hadabat Al Zafaranah, Al Shahama and Al Bahya, Al Wathba and Al Nahdah, Al Shilaila and Al Sadr, and Yas and Wathba North. Such forms were aimed at enhancing the communication with the community and identifying their needs.

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© Press Release 2015