China to Start Work on Eco-City in New Year
Date: 10-Sep-07
Country: CHINA
Author: Emma Graham-Harrison
Peter Head, Director of engineering firm Arup, said they
will not need subsidies to make money because developers spend
less on infrastructure and have been given generous land use
rights on the crowded east coast where real estate is at a
premium.
The firm expects construction to start in early 2008 at
Dongtan, a development on an island outside Shanghai where all
energy will be renewable, no gasoline-fuelled cars permitted
and farms will grow organic vegetables for local consumption.
The first wave of residents and staff for a sustainable
development institute will move into the project by the end of
the decade, Head told Reuters in an interview, dismissing
accusations that the project would stumble without subsidies.
"The economics and commercial viability are strong", said
Head, who was in the northeastern Chinese city of Dalian for
the World Economic Forum.
Because Beijing is heavily promoting greener growth, the
sustainable but fully commercial project -- a venture of the
Shanghai Industrial Investment Corporation -- got permits for
much more construction than they would normally be allowed.
"If you can get twice as much saleable area on a site, the
cost of the buildings is irrelevant, as essentially the value
of the land is much greater," he added.
They are working with a global property firm to market the
project and expect the initial 8,000 population to swell to
80,000 by 2015 or 2020, he added.
Eventually the island should house 400,000, people, linked
to Shanghai with a road and metro line along a massive bridge
and tunnel, although it is not designed as a greener commuter
suburb.
"We aim to have it be a place where people can live and
work, not just a suburb of Shanghai, because travelling creates
resource depletion," Head said.
NEW MODEL
Arup also expects to start construction within 6 months to
a year on Langfang, a sustainable town in Hebei province, which
surrounds capital Beijing and is packed with polluting industry
and plagued by water shortages.
"In many ways it is more important than Dongtan, because
its more typical of regeneration and development projects in
China."
Half way between Beijing and the port city of Tianjin, the
area is home to around 100,000 people in a cluster of villages,
but the eco-city will be home to 400,000.
Often, as rural areas in China develop, old streets and
homes are cleared away and an infrastructure grid laid out for
businesses and home to fill in.
The Langfang project, funded by both public and private
money, will instead keep the footprint of the current villages,
separated by pear orchards and poplar groves and connected by
buses or trams and cycle paths.
Waste water from the city will be cleaned to use in
irrigation, and organic waste will be converted into compost,
to help boost the rural economy as the city develops.
The company is also working on plans for projects near
Jinan, capital of coastal Shandong province, the historic city
of Suzhou and in a small town on a canal outside Shanghai, Head
said.