Tamweel residents set to return
They are preparing to do so in July after five-year wait to complete repairs
DUBAI // Five years after a fire tore through Tamweel Tower, residents are preparing to return next month.
Maintenance checks to prepare the building for their return began on Monday.
Orient Insurance, the tower’s insurer, has handed the keys to the apartments and control of the tower to the flat owners’ association.
The association manages the building and handles issues ranging from security to maintenance.
It said it would draft a moving schedule for the 160 families to avoid overloading the building’s infrastructure.
Dubai Municipality and the Civil Defence have approved the building’s new cladding and issued a building completion certificate for the handover.
However, the residents are less than enthusiastic about returning after the long wait.
“It could take 10 days for the facilities management company to check that all the systems are working – such as fresh running water and air circulation – and then people will start moving in,” said Masoud Nayebi, head of the association.
“People have lost a lot of money in rents that had to be paid for apartments they are staying in. I don’t have excitement about moving in, I just hope this can be finished soon.”
Police investigation found that a discarded cigarette ignited waste material that caused the blaze at the building in Jumei- rah Lakes on November 18, 2012.
The fire was fuelled by the 34- storey tower’s aluminium cladding, which had a highly flammable thermoplastic core.
The building was declared uninhabitable after the fire, and the five-year wait to return has dealt a financial blow to residents, most of whom have been living in rented apartments.
The residents were allowed to return to their flats to inspect the repair work in February.
Delays on the repair work were exacerbated by uncertainty over whether the owners’ association or Orient Insurance could handle the contracts for the repair work.
The association also had to register with the emirate’s property authority and reconstruction clearances were required from the municipality and Civil Defence.
Civil Defence required the removal of all old cladding panels, not only those damaged in the fire.
“It has been an eye-opening experience because as owners we had to fend for ourselves,” said Arif Halela, a flat owner.
“There was no one to protect our rights or look out for the investor. It was individuals in the association that intervened and found solutions. But now we finally have a building that meets all the standards.”
Tamweel Tower was the first of several high-rise fires and this led to a ban on the use of aluminium cladding that had not been rated for fire safety in new buildings. Repair work had to meet tougher safety regulations as part of the amended UAE Fire and Life Safety Code of Practice.
The code specifies the installation of exterior cladding and details the responsibilities of consultants, contractors and manufacturers. As most Tamweel residents have had to pay the rental costs of the flats they moved to and service their housing loans for the past five years, they have asked the authorities to waive community and chiller fees.
“Financially this has been very difficult. It would help so many families if fees for services we have not used can be dropped,” said Anwar Hussein, a flat owner.