Green light for Dubai’s first private floating islands
By Parag Deulgaonkar
Emirates 24|7
June.2015
Oqyana World First to have 33 floating houses with own beach, garden and pool
Oqyana Real Estate and Amillarah Private Islands will create will be 33 luxury floating private islands with each having a garden, pool and beach. (Supplied)
Dubai-based Nakheel has given the go-ahead to the developer of the floating islands, which are part of Oqyana World First, on The World, an artificial archipelago of over 300 islands, according to the project developers.
“Nakheel has now granted our project with all the necessary permits in order to take the next step,” Oqyana Real Estate and Amillarah Private Islands said in a joint statement.
The developer claims it was the ‘first’ floating project ‘officially approved’ on The World, which has been developed by Nakheel, a wholly-owned government entity.
In January 2015, the two companies signed a deal to create a series of floating private islands as part of the project located on Australasia.
There will be 33 luxury floating private islands with each having a garden, pool and beach.
“We are offering floating private islands, tailor made to the clients specifications, based on our Dutch heritage of hundreds of years of working with the water,” Paul van de Camp, CEO, Amillarah, told Emirates 24|7.
“We do not want to start any sales before all permits are granted and all technical details are engineered.”
Completely stable on the water, the base of the island is built to last for far over 100 years and will create a new underwater habitat for sea life, the company states, adding, it is building similar islands in Maldives and in Miami in the US.
Oqyana World First comprises high-end villas, apartments, hospitality and retail elements.
In May 2015, this website reported that Kleindienst Group, developer of the Heart of Europe development on The World, had sold 35 of 42 Dh6.5-million ‘floating seahorses’, which will have the master bedroom and bathroom totally submerged underwater, to Gulf Cooperation Council nationals, Europeans and Indians.
The World
The World project is nine-kilometres wide and seven-kilometres long.
It covers an area of 931 hectares and will add 232km to Dubai’s natural 67km of beachfront.
The islands range from 150,000 to 450,000 square feet in size.
The project is divided into private estate island zones, commercial zones, which have low/mid/high density resorts, hubs for ferry transfer points and public visitor areas.