East Sitra Social Housing Project

The East Sitra Housing Development Project is a new affordable housing project that will become a mega waterfront development built on a reclaimed island^{1 2}. The newly reclaimed island will be linked to Shaikh Salman bin Ahmed Al Fateh Street Highway in the Sitra Island through two main accesses³.The project aims to create a balanced urban environment that offers a variety of choices of accommodation and services⁴. It also aligns with the objectives laid out in The Social and Affordable Housing Programme of Bahrainⁱ and with the vision and mission of the Ministry of Housing in Bahrain to “support the creation of a Bahrain in which every citizen of the Kingdom, and in particular those with limited income, has access to adequate and decent housing and the opportunity to live as part of a safe and integrated community” and “enhances the quality of life of all Bahraini citizens by delivering superior housing services through an innovative and sustainable housing system that strengthens both Bahrain’s society and its economy”⁵.

To implement the project’s vision, a master plan was proposed which extends along a 2,534 square kilometer site on Sitra City with sea fronts of 6.6 kilometer length⁶.

The plan will provide 3,000 affordable housing units for its citizens⁷ and includes all the facilities and services that serve its residents, such as health, educational facilities, places of worship, commercial centers, fuel stations, police stations and coast guard, youth centers and elderly care, and public parks. The city will also include basic services such as power stations, water tanks, a sewage treatment plant, communications towers^{8 9}.

Thus, the master plan will be vibrant in terms of uses and fully coordinated with traffic and infrastructure requirements¹⁰. As such, the affordable housing units, green spaces, facilities, and services in Sitra strive to enhance the quality of life and also promote sustainability by fostering an integrated and inclusive community through affordable development.

The project is initiated by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning¹¹. It has specified a master plan for the project as proposed by Gulf House Engineering, a renowned consulting firm in Bahrain and the GCC region¹². The project will be implemented by China Machinery Engineering Corporation (CMEC)¹³, where the overall estimated project construction cost is $693 million¹⁴.

The project has been under implementation over four key phases:

• First Phase [2014]: Gulf House Engineering finalizes the detailed master plan¹⁵
• Second Phase [2015]: The foundation stone is laid^{16 17}.
• Third Phase [2019]: East Sitra implementation contracts with the Chinese Company CMEC¹⁸.
• Fourth Phase [2020]: The implementation of the master plan¹⁹.

It’s worth noting that the affordable housing units are also achieved through an initiative proposed by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning in cooperation with the private sector, which provides and secures concessional financing to the residents of Bahrain according to conditions that determine who benefits from this support^{20 21}.