Dubai is starting to become a place where residents are getting used to putting up with strange and in some cases plain odd things when it comes to their homes. Dubai property developers have made a name for themselves by creating weird and wonderful freehold real estate projects, something I am sure most appreciate. Unfortunately some developers like to carry the crazy and unique part over to their dealing with residents; well the crazy part anyway. There have been quite a few reports of property owners and Dubai developers coming to blows on numerous issues in the past, and unless there is a large charge from Dubai real estate developers any time soon, don’t expect such problems to go away fast! Emaar has in the past hit the headlines for giving residents at the Greens and the Lakes, who were renting apartments, only 2 weeks to move out or purchase their property for the going market rate, and this is only really the tip of the ice burg.

Only recently residents at Jumeirah Beach Residence one of Dubai properties biggest developers were hit by what they saw was a unreasonable services charges price rise from the developments management company. The 129% increase did not go down well, but the management company has since said it would look into improving efficiency to bring this down. The newest development to see residents displeased with what their developer has decided to change is the Greens Community. So what is the uproar about this time? Well it seems developer Emaar has decided to replace grass in some of the central court yards with artificial grass. It seems Emaar has deemed the move necessary to fix some leaking water from entering underground garages. However residents don’t seem to agree with the changes and now an online petition has been started to voice resident’s displeasure at the changes. With a 100 signatures already collected there are clearly a good deal of people not happy with the move, but Emaar is going ahead as planned anyway.

Emaar states the work is necessary, and only a small area is being changed to artificial grass, and the Greens will still retain much of its landscaping. However it is understandable that residents at a development called ‘The Greens’ are slightly uneasy with their greenery being replaced with plastic!