Palestinians to build their first new town in West Bank in decades

Dec 12, 2007, 17:11 GMT

Ramallah - A Palestinian real estate company announced Wednesday that it plans to build the first new Palestinian town in the West Bank in at least a century.

The 200 million-US-dollar town near Ramallah, in the central West Bank, will also be the first pre-planned Palestinian town.

The company, Bayti, said in a statement sent to the media that the new town, which will be called Rawabi (Arabic for hills) will have its groundbreaking in the spring.

It will have 4,000 units as a start housing 25,000 people and will have all the facilities of a fully developed town.

According to Bashar Masri, Bayti's chairman of the board, the concept for the new Palestinian town has been in development for a long time.

All necessary land purchases had been finalized before going public with the plan, he said.

'We drew up initial plans and are about to begin the detailed plans for this model modern town in order to hold the groundbreaking ceremony in the spring of 2008,' said Masri. It is expected that the first units will be available for occupancy in 2010.

The new town will feature its own downtown and commercial centre, banks, businesses, schools, a hospital, restaurants, gas stations, parks, a public transportation system and a variety of retail establishments, said Masri.

Ultimately, the town is expected to generate several thousand employment opportunities for Palestinians, he added.

Masri said, 'Rawabi is designed to be built as an uncrowded, environment- and family-friendly town.'

The majority of Palestinians in the West Bank lives in rural areas and commutes to work in crowded cities, which all began as small communities - many of them dating back to Biblical times and beyond, others to at least decades ago - and grew over the years without any real town planning.

Bayti, with a 25-million-dollars capital, represents a consortium of Palestinian investors, lead by Massar International. Bayti said it has already built similar communities in Morocco.