Hogle-Ireland Staff Members on Local TV Show

December 2008

Paul Ireland, Partner, and Kathy Lottes, Senior Project Manager, were guests on a recent telecast of REAL ORANGE at KOCE-TV to talk about Hogle-Ireland, Inc. and its work in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

As a California-based company known for its wide-ranging planning expertise, Hogle-Ireland, Inc. was asked to participate in a project to provide expert planning advice to the government of Abu Dhabi, which is one of seven emirates in the UAE. Specifically, Hogle-Ireland, Inc. was asked to assess the development review process currently utilized by a newly created planning agency and to look at ways of improving the expediency of that process.

In early 2007, the Abu Dhabi government created a central planning agency, called the Urban Planning Council (UPC), and assigned responsibility for the review and approval of all major development projects throughout the Abu Dhabi Emirate to the new agency. One of UPC's foremost goals was provide an expeditious review process for development project applications while also requiring development to meet high planning standards.

Hogle-Ireland, Inc. spent seven weeks in Abu Dhabi during August and September, 2007 conducting an audit of existing UPC practices and developing preliminary recommendations. That was followed by another week in early November, 2007 holding workshops with the UPC, governmental agencies, service providers, and the development community to gather feedback on the recommendations. The UPC is now reviewing the finalized set of recommendations which include suggestions for the UPC to assert its leadership as the lead planning agency, consolidation of external review by approximately 25 agencies, automation of the application and case management system, and a transition plan to handle projects submitted prior to the creation of the UPC.

Abu Dhabi, covering about 86% of the land area of the UAE, is the largest emirate. The municipality of Abu Dhabi with a population of just under one million is the largest city within the emirate and serves as the capital of the UAE. Abu Dhabi has been experiencing a substantial volume of real estate development activity similar to what has already happened in Dubai. In the face of that development pressure, the government decided to take two primary actions that would allow it to better guide its future growth: 1) Plan Abu Dhabi 2030 was created, which is a long-term vision to shape the municipality of Abu Dhabi into a world class city; and 2) the Urban Planning Council (UPC) was created to develop a cohesive set of planning regulations as well as an efficient planning review process with the overall goal to make Plan Abu Dhabi 2030 a reality, and to assure that future development throughout the Emirate is of the highest quality.