LIVING SMART
In 2005, Medine Group developed a master plan that has since effectively governed the company’s economic diversification strategy, whilst ensuring the coherent, harmonious and sustainable development of the land bank.
Within this, Medine has taken an increasingly active involvement within property development, leading to its present positioning as an established leader within the sector.
“In 2007, Medine Group set up a dedicated property and urban development arm to implement the vision of the Medine Master Plan, whose motto was: ‘see far and look closely’,” Dhiren Ponnusamy tells us.
“At the time, Medine was a pioneer in Mauritius in terms of Master
Planned Community development, with the ambition of building a new town on the west coast of Mauritius,” he adds, making reference to the Integrated Resort Scheme and within this specifically the development of the Tamarina Golf Estate, as a marketdefining move.
Subsequently, Medine Group was successfully issued with a ‘Smart
City Certificate’ in 2017 from the Economic Development Board under the Mauritian Government’s ‘Smart City Scheme’. The scheme was initially launched as an opportunity for investors to share in the vision of creating innovative and sustainable cities across Mauritius, centring on a ‘Live-Work-Play’ concept and backed with the necessary enabling legal framework and attractive incentives for real estate developers.
“One of the big advantages of the scheme is that it enables a coherent masterplan for a mixed-use development to be approved as a whole, rather than projects being treated as individual components.
“The main incentives for smart city companies and developers include tax exemptions, sustainable-green features and initiative allowances, permits facilitation through the Economic Development Board, defined frameworks for the city governance (code civil) and the sale of immovable property,” Dhiren Ponnusamy explains.
This granted Medine Group with the opportunity to develop its own Smart City, Uniciti, thereby bringing long-term value to the company’s shareholders whilst furthering property development on the island with the infrastructure in place to attract a range of diversified inhabitants.
“Uniciti is now a reality, and the overall aim is to position the west coast of Mauritius as a fully integrated hub based on the ‘Live-Work-EnjoyLearn’ concept.”
issue 91