Another review of the Palm

One of the things people in other countries often ask one about Dubai is the Palm. Not all know that there is more than one, but the concept is certainly famous enough that people are curious. While parts of it are nice, there are less-appealing aspects, including the questionable environmental impact and less than fully reliable real estate arrangements. Add rumors of sinking sections causing damage, the fact that even palm Jumeirah is still a construction site (we rented a place out there a few months ago when some of my elephant polo team met up in town en route to a tournament, and our apartment door was labeled"occupied" to distinguish it from all the rest. I went swimming with the dear sister, and felt more than a little guilty swimming under the gaze of the near-by construction workers. The trunk road is also a pain; in order to minimize traffic, it is all one-way. If your place is on the left side of the trunk as you enter, you must drive down it to turn around to et to your building. This gets old. Even the larger, more expensive villas are pretty close to one another as well, making privacy difficult), my own concerns about traffic (the trunk connects to the road at one point, one future serious traffic choke point), rumors of sharks out near the end fronds (there are sharks in the Gulf, but far out. But the Palm is far out) and the general kitchiness question.

Now the mainstream press, often so positive (with the exception of some articles devoted to the plight of laborers and domestics) is starting to notice as well. The Guardian ran an article titled "Pitfalls in Paradise: Why Palm Jumeirah is Struggling to Live Up to the Hype," first brought to my attention by Grape Shisha.

To be fair, only roughly 4,000 people of the 65,000 who will eventually live there (plus the 40-odd hotels) have already moved in, so you can't say that the Jumeirah Palm is "done," so some of these issues may be fixed in the future. But some may also be exacerbated.

Among the issues detailed by the Guardian:

- Multimillion-pound villas squeezed together "like Coronation Street" (a British soap opera including a street of that name, full of tight houses). This is also apparently the result of deceptive construction practices ala the metro line. The article quotes Rachael Wilds, 42, an exhibition organiser from Surrey who moved in with her family to a palatial villa on one of the Palm's "fronds" a year ago, who complained that she found her £3m property squashed against a neighbour's and set in a barren, almost treeless, landscape. "It was absolutely nothing as it was depicted in the brochure," she says. "There was a massive gap between the villas and it was full of lush tropical gardens. We were totally shocked at the closeness of the villas." What is true elsewhere is doubly true in Dubai. Caveat Emptor.

- Air-conditioning bills of £800 a month (roughly 1600 USD). This is just poor engineering. Its not like the weather would be a surprise. Could they not make the houses more efficient? This is also the buyers' fault too though - they should have paid attention to such things.

- Overly-pushy PR. The villas were built by state-owned Nakheel Properties, and their is omnipresent on flags all over the island. For some residents, this is a little much. Again to be fair though, flags with logos and slogans are all over Dubai, especially along bridges and main roads. So complaining that the Palm is doing this may also fall under the "well, what did you expect" rubric.

- Intensive irrigation is necessary to maintain the landscaping, but uses tremendous amounts of water (note: most of the water will come from desalinization plants, which themselves use tremendous amounts of energy)

- Tallest trees actually mobile phone masts dressed up to look like palms (I didn't notice these, so they must be at least OK. There is one across from the entrance to Madinat though and it isn't bad for what it is)

- Guilt over the quality of life of the migrant construction workers. This is a real concern. But again, this is a pan-Dubai issue and one people should consider when purchasing anywhere here. Problems mentioned in the Guardian include low salaries of 200 USD per month, debts to agents in their home countries who paid for their passage with interest rates as high as 120% a year, increasing alcoholism and debts accumulated to pay for said drink, unpaid salaries, poor living conditions, rising suicide rates and separation from families at home.

Some numbers from the Guardian:

13m: The number of liters of desalinated drinking water the Palm Jumeirah uses when at capacity (they didn't say in what period. It may in one day).

28: Bottlenose dolphins have been flown in from the Solomon Islands to populate Dolphin Bay, an 11-acre lagoon

94m: The cubic meters of sand used to build the Palm Jumeirah

84: The site has doubled the natural 42-mile coastline of Dubai

4: The Palm is four times the size of Hyde Park in central London

The Unforeseen Hazards of Construction and Real Estate in Dubai

I have seen quite a few advertisements (including one flashing billboard) to buy real estate in Dubai during my stay in Moscow. Part of this I'm sure is just going farther afield efforts to prop up the real estate sales, but the fantastic promises made by advertisers here bring to mind some of the issues that are involved. I am also in the early stages of shopping for a new residence myself, which probably accounts for why these issues seem so fascinating and hazardous.

The first real issue for foreigners such as myself is the type of land. I am only interested in freehold, which means property which I can purchase and own, as opposed to leasehold, which is property that I own, but on land which I am only leasing from the government. This lease can be for 99 years, but it does increase restrictions on what I or any heirs can do with it. It was the introduction of widespread freehold property that really sparked the beginning of the property boom/bubble a few years back. That the offer of a residency visa (and the banking privileges that includes in the tax-free USE) with a purchased residence.

For starters, while a growing number of completed villas and apartments are available for sale throughout Dubai, many are still under construction. They tend to cost a little less than comparable ready-made residences, and there have been many cases where buyers could sell them at a great profit once they were ready, but there are also risks. I am only looking at completed housing, however, mostly because of the first two of the following concerns.

The first is the most obvious. An image which looks good in an artist's rendering may be put together with poor quality finishings, or not even look that way at all. I've seen ads showing grass and trees where there were none, and even ads which erase neighboring buildings, to give the building being sold the appearance of being in a more spacious area, or, in one case, on the waterfront where in reality and entire row of buildings stands before it (alas I misplaced the ad in question, but it was for a building in the Marina area and the ad is in the In-Flight magazine for Emirates, among other places). You buy now, and when you move in your wall could be cracked, the faucets super cheap and unattractive, the playground non-existent and the wide green lawn a small bricked over terrace. This is enough of an issue that there is an ad on the radio for one development using the promise that the completed development would match which was promised as their "hook."

New topography. One of the cooler things about construction in Dubai is the ability and willingness to change the topography to suit the building. The Palms are probably the most famous cases of this, but they are by far not the only ones. While the Marina was first being built, buildings that were on the water when first showed and sold later became a few rows away as the land was filled in. On the Jumeirah Palm apartments that had a canal view when sold now have a view of earth (a filled-in canal) which supports the elevated metro platform, and will one day be a view of the elevated metro itself. One person I know purchased their apartment across from the actual Marina because they were pretty sure that the Marina would be left alone and that his Gulf (and Palm) views would be preserved.

Financial risks. These aren't so terrible, but they exist. I do not mean that the prices of your purchase could go down; they could, and although a workers amnesty reduced the number of construction workers in Dubai, which reduced the number of construction sites that could run 24-hours cycles, or just extended-schedule cycles, which in turn slowed down how quickly they would all be on the market and increase supply, they will still be finished one day, which will increase supply, which will have an effect. The whole market could collapse entirely for that matter (I don't think it will, but it could).

The financial risk that I am talking about is the one borne when you put money down. This is of course a standard practice if you purchase an apartment or villa still under construction. I did the same when I bought an apartment in the US. The difference is that when I put my money down in the US it went to an escrow account, where neither I nor the developer could touch it. When the building was finished and we went to settlement, that money was added to the rest of my payment to pay the entire amount. In Dubai the developer gets the money immediately. They could save it, invest it conservatively, use it to fund the construction of your development or give it away for all the control you have. They tend to invest it. This became a problem a while back however, when one of Dubai's two major development firms gambled big and lost a lot a large portion of their assets on the Dubai stock market. The company could have gone under and everyone who made deposits would have been out of luck. The good part about an authoritarian government and (semi)managed economy, however, is that this was not allowed to happen; that company's leadership was ordered to save the company using their own considerable personal assets, which they did.

An ad for yet a tower in the marina area. The area looks like that, only the buildings are surrounded by many others, there is no water in the background, and the trees (clearly photoshopped in in the original photo) occupy area occupied by more buildings in real life.

UAE Internet to Be Liberalized, Sort-Of

Business 24-7 recently ran a story on plans to "liberalize" the Internet within the UAE, specifically the system of blocks which restrict residents' access to websites which are "inconsistent with the religious, cultural, political and moral values United Arab Emirates" or compete with the two state-dominated Internet Service Providers (ISPs), which coincidentally also provide all land and mobile phone service in the country as well (which is why VOIP is banned). Sensitive political sites are also blocked, particularly those which highlight problems within the UAE itself.

Some of these are criminal (phishing sites, for example), or truly objectionable by any measure (I am 100% for blocking child pornography sites, for example, and although I disagree I see their point about regular pornographic sites or pages that are both untrue and nasty), but a lot of it is frustrating and overly controlling. An art site (with no pornography, but with the very occasional nude) is among the blocked, as is the photo sharing site Flickr, which means that I can't email my father a link to my latest vacation pictures (he's not the sort to VPN). Which is just as well because if he saw me and the Dear Sister feeding the elephants apples all sorts of mayhem would break out. Facebook was out too until public outcry forced it back on the .ae net.

Which is why I found it so interesting when the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA), which oversees these blocks, announced that they are in the process of developing a plan to "liberalize" Internet access. In a way they are right; the new plan will permit them to block only sub-sites, for example those pages on Flickr showing "objectionable" images or the Facebook pages related to dating services. This could open up the rest of Flickr and other such sites, which I like. It will however bring in new controls to popular sites which are currently entirely open, including Facebook.

It also makes me wonder what exactly will be blocked? Any profile listing the member as interested in dating for example? Random play? I think that latter option is stupid (are you really looking for "random play" on Facebook?) but a lot of people list those. What about people who just list themselves as "single" or give each other virtual alcoholic drinks?

Even more concerning are plans to institute these new blocks on the services provided by Du. Right now Etisalat provides all coverage in the UAE except in some free zones, where Du provides unblocked access to the foreign companies and their employees which operate therein. These new restrictions will apply there as well, thereby closing the last avenue to free information available to those who lack the technical understanding to circumvent the blocks.

The TRA also promises that the plan will include measures to improve Internet service and lower prices in the country. Neither is that great right now, and real improvements are sure to be welcome, which is why I'm sure this topic, unrelated to the issue of censorship in terms of applicable regulations or economic measures, was included in the "liberalization" plan.

Obvious Statement of the Week Award

Six cables damaged in under two weeks and you think it may have been the work of saboteurs? At least the story is getting out there.

Undersea Saboteurs May Have Been Responsible For Cable Cuts

Some highlights:

Reports from those vessels have apparently indicated that the may not have been caused by accident or through natural events. According to the ITU's (International Telecom Union) head of development, Sami al-Murshed, "We do not want to preempt the results of ongoing investigations, but we do not rule out that a deliberate act of sabotage caused the damage to the undersea cables over two weeks ago,"

"Do not rule out," doesn't carry quite the same weight as "have proof of sabotage," but of the five cable cuts, only one (the link between the UAE and Oman) is definitely established to have been an accident. There are doubts regarding the others, as some experts feel that the cables were too deep to be cut and lie outside of normal shipping lanes. The short period of time between the other four failures may also be indicative of deliberate action, as its unusual for multiple critical cable breaks to occur that close together. Four of the five cables have been repaired at this point the repair status of the fifth cable is unknown.

Just because an abandoned anchor was found at the damaged point of one cable doesn't mean that it was an accident. It is possible that one of the cables providing connectivity was damaged by accident on the same day that another, distant, cable providing connectivity to the Middle East was also damaged, but somehow I doubt it. I don't know who or what was behind the cable breaks, but six cables down in under two weeks is not an accident, especially compared to the previous record - the last serious damage to a cable was in 2006, when an earthquake disrupted (just) one cable serving parts of Asia.

The damaged anchor discovered at the site of one of damaged cables.
This photo comes from the FLAG website, two of FLAG's cables being among those damaged.