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8 playgrounds and parks to come 
up in Baniyas city

The projects also include children’s playground areas and the rehabilitation of the existing 307,176-square-metre Baniyas Park.

The Abu Dhabi City Municipality is developing eight new parks in Baniyas town, on the eastern outskirts of the capital.

Work has already started on four of these parks, while it is working on the designs of constructing four other parks, all of which are expected to be completed in the last quarter of 2017.

The new parks projects of this densely populated town will offer recreational facilities conforming to the standards of sustainability as well as the sound, safe and healthy environment. The projects also include children’s playground areas and the rehabilitation of the existing 307,176-square-metre Baniyas Park.

Happening in several phases, the upgrade of the existing park will include new recreational facilities and more environmentally sustainable irrigation and maintenance practices.

The first children’s playground will stretch over 594 square metres and it is set to be ready by the end of this year. The municipality will add two other playgrounds of similar sizes by the summer of 2015.

The four new parks in the pipeline will extend across 5,655 square metres, 4,554 square metres, 6,021 square metres and 5,379 square metres each in different parts of Baniyas, and there will also be an additional children’s playground of 583 square metres, all ready by the end of 2016.

The other four parks where work has already begun — spanning 19,749 square metres in all — will open their gates to the public by the fourth quarter of 2017.

“I hope that Baniyas residents will be luckier than us,” said Mariam Al Ali, a resident of neighbouring Khalifa City.

“For years, the municipality promised us some green spaces, but nothing so far,” she complained.

Indeed, in 2012 the municipality announced it will build three new public parks in Khalifa City A of 3,200 square metres in total. A Press release published by the municipality in March this year states that “three parks have already been constructed so far”. Yet, residents here claim that no public park exists and a drive through the entire area shows no signs of any green public space.

A few kilometres away, Baniyas, a town much older than Khalifa City A, has witnessed a lot more development in recent years.

Apart from infrastructure, this includes the Gems Cambridge International School, the Baniyas Sports and Cultural Club Stadium and the Baniyas Mall, considered the second largest in Abu Dhabi. The new parks, when completed, may attract visitors from the browner looking nearby towns, Khalifa city included.

silvia@khaleejtimes.com