Out of the box

Comment and clarification

Ismail Al Hammadi

August 31, 2021

“A privileged location, as you say, but what is the point of not having any shops in the area?

The nearest grocery or restaurant at the petrol station is located on the main street... You were busy building 1,000 villas, and you did not think about building a building for shops, or a mosque, so that they would all be ready when the villas are delivered!”

This is a comment by a follower on a social networking site on a villa project being developed in stages in the market, and this comment stopped me from two angles: the first relates to the view of some of the horizontal housing projects, and the second relates to the completion of all the requirements of residential projects before they are delivered.

With regard to the first angle, some believe that there should be shops between each group of villas (in villa projects) to serve the residents of that group, as is the case in vertical residential projects (buildings and towers) in which it is allowed to allocate the ground floor of them to the retail sector and commercial outlets This means that this category is mistaken in its evaluation and view of the horizontal housing projects (villas).

Here, it must be clarified that villa complexes are subject to urban planning before construction to serve the aesthetic of the general urban fabric of the region through the organized distribution of villas, streets, parking lots, and the green spaces that accompany them. It is considered a distortion of the urban plan, and it must be clarified that each villa complex is allocated about 10% of the space for the retail sector and is in a specific area, which may be far from some residents, but it is present, and this is what we see through the various shopping centers that these complexes contain.

For reference and addition in general, shopping now and ordering materials necessary for life is no longer dependent on the necessity of our presence in the shop or mall, as all orders are available electronically or over the phone, and delivery is done to the customer's home.

As a matter of raising awareness and correcting such misconceptions among some, and like the author of the comment referred to at the beginning of the topic, the lack of large spread of shops, and the lack of daily service facilities, especially supermarkets and groceries in villa complexes, does not mean that the resident will face difficulties in providing his daily needs. This prompts him to reconsider the decision to buy or rent them. Rather, they are complexes that provide all the requirements for living, as well as shopping centers of modern standards located in designated areas subject to urban planning. Otherwise, how do we explain the high demand today for villas?

As for the second angle, it is related to the process of developing villa complexes, as it is better for projects to complete service facilities such as mosques and shopping malls in line with the same pace of completion of villas, provided that they are ready to serve the residents of the complex upon the date of handing over their units or close to them. .

These lines were just an analysis from a private point of view, to a comment that stopped me on one of the social media platforms, and I hope I was right.

To read the previous articles of the writer please click on its name.