Labourers’ accommodation: MME finalises planning standards

The Urban Development Planning Department (UDP) at the Ministry of Municipality and Environment (MME) has completed 100% of the planning standards for permanent and temporary labourers’ accommodations in 2016.The final draft of the standards was approved by HE the Minister of Municipality and Environment Mohamed bin Abdullah al-Rumaihi and was sent to all municipalities in the country, in addition to the other related entities.The UDP’s achievements last year include the preparation of the new conditions for the land plots allocated to garage and scrap storage at the Doha Industrial Area, which were 100% accomplished. Similarly, the conditions for business centres and their work mechanism were 100% accomplished, announced, and declared. Also, the modified organisational standards for commercial streets were 100% prepared for seven streets. Regarding the metro and long distances project, the department had allocated all the sites requested by the project within Phase 1 for the metro project, and all the land plots allocated for the long distance train project Phase 1 were 100% allocated. In 2016, the department allocated seven sites for workers’ accommodation complex with comprehensive services such as permanent places at different areas in the country over a total area of 6,545,157sqm that could accommodate around 179,000 workers. The 13 other locations were allocated as temporary accommodation sites after developing lands with a total space of 3,692,954sqm divided into 1,575 land plots that could accommodate up to 211,000 single beds, and 390,000 double-deck beds. This was 100% accomplished last year.The department accomplished the allocation of 37 plots of land for the upcoming 2022 FIFA World Cup playgrounds. However, worker is still ongoing to complete the sites for bus stops, assembly points, and the allocation of villages for fans around the country, and eight plots of land had been allocated to the main playgrounds. Ongoing work to allocate the ninth site is 65% complete.For the neighborhood markets, work had been done in four phases, while the fifth phase located at the outskirts of the country is still under study and 80% complete.The economic, industrial, and logistic zones projects are around 92% complete. These include the allocation of 13 temporary logistics sites for the Public Works Authority (Ashghal), and four other permanent logistic sites for Manateq. Other accomplishments include the allocation of a site for the second logistic, economic, and industrial area at Al Karaana and the study for the third area at Umm Al Houl was accomplished in terms of general design.