But urban planners, investors and government officials working to develop the modern urban area about a 30-minute drive north of Kabul say it will be home to an estimated 1.5 million people when it’s completed in 2025.
The $34 billion public-private project — 750 square kilometers (290 square miles) at the foothills of the majestic Safi Mountains — is bigger than the existing Kabul.
Standing on vacant land at the site, Elham Omar Hotaki, who works with the government authority developing the project, pointed to color-coded maps plotting homes and apartments, shops, mosques, a library, a fire station, areas for farming and light industry — even picturesque parks.
“When each mega project starts, everyone thinks it won’t happen,” Hotaki said acknowledging that some people are dubious the development will ever be built.
“After World War II, who could imagine that New York would look like it does — a big city? No one. Everyone thought it was impossible, impossible, impossible,” Hotaki said, his hair blowing in the breeze. “But I think it’s possible.” New Kabul City began in 2006 when President Hamid Karzai set up a board of Afghan and foreign experts to develop a new city to provide additional housing for residents of the capital, which is bursting at its seams.
About 4.5 million people are living in the city, which was built to handle about 700,000, said Gholam Sachi Hassanzadah, deputy chairman of the Independent Board of New Kabul City Development.
“In 15 years, the population will be more than 6.5 million or 7 million. There is no space for that,” he said.
In 2009, the Afghan Cabinet endorsed a master plan to build the new city in three phases spanning 15 years. By 2025, the project is expected to create 500,000 jobs — 100,000 in agriculture, 100,000 in industry and 300,000 in service and other sectors.
The first phase, to be completed in 2015, is to provide 80,000 housing units for 400,000 people. Contracts are to be awarded this year for developing the first 18,400 units, and construction could start as early as January 2013.
“The only thing which can possibly stop this is not a good security situation,” Hassanzadah said. “If we have good security, you will see that development will go very, very fast.” Many challenges remain. Insurgent attacks must be curbed, investors need to sign deals and Afghans have to want to buy and rent the homes and businesses to be built.
Rich and poor are to live in the 250,000 residential units planned in the new city, according to project officials. An estimated 70,000 will be in the mid- to high-priced range; 70,000 will be mid-priced units; 60,000 will be low-priced units; and 50,000 will be rural abodes.
The plan is for international donors and the Afghan government to supply $11 billion over the next 15 to 20 years to build water and sewer lines, electricity and roads. Japan, which is already working on water feasibility studies, and the Asian Development Bank have pledged to help build streets, initial infrastructure and power lines.
Project officials said they could not yet disclose how much Japan and ADB had pledged.
Private investors in Afghanistan, United Arab Emirates, Turkey and Azerbaijan also have expressed interest by seeking more information about the development, the officials said.
All told, an estimated $23 billion worth of private sector money for constructing the city after infrastructure is in place is expected to be invested in the project.
The project was unveiled to potential US investors in February, and about 50 representatives of 26 Afghan and international development companies gathered at a Kabul hotel this week to learn more and tour the site.
On the half-hour drive, their convoy passed crowded, dusty neighborhoods and maneuvered through traffic choked with cars, armored military vehicles, buses, men pushing wheelbarrows loaded with potatoes and policemen standing guard with rifles.
As the dozen-vehicle convoy left the city, the traffic eased. The convoy sped by heavy equipment distributors, nomadic Kuchi villagers tending goats and sheep grazing on piles of trash. Still farther from Kabul, the air freshened and the convoy pulled up to the development site office on a main road about halfway between Kabul and Bagram Air Field, a massive US military base.
“Over here is open space, fresh air,” said Ghousuddin Ahmadi, president of Star Construction in Kabul, who went on the tour. “It’s a planned city. They have thought about the sewage system. They have thought about the infrastructure so we feel it’s a pretty complete project that is worth investing in.” An Afghan public development authority is acquiring land at the site that the government doesn’t already own. Teams are working to identify property owners — not an easy task, as land records in Afghanistan are sketchy at best.
Currently, donkeys roam freely around square plots that people have demarcated with knee-high stone and brick walls. Some people who built walls have legal title to the land, but others are simply trying to claim it’s theirs.
Project officials say that without proper paperwork, they will not be compensated.
Mahmoud Saikal, senior adviser to the Independent Board of New Kabul City Development, said the project requires security, legal norms and cooperation from Afghan government ministries.
“In Afghanistan, there is an expression that the road to paradise doesn’t go through a Persian rug,” Saikal said.
“It means the road to getting this project materialized is not an easy one.” Though corruption has become endemic in Afghan society, Hassanzadah said it will not be tolerated as New Kabul rises.
“It is a clean project,” Hassanzadah said. “We are committed to transparency. Corruption is a two-way road. We expect investors and developers to be transparent as well.
... We will not allow for public money to be abused.” Sayed Daud, a businessman who owns about 150 acres at the site, said only recently has he started seeing a flurry of government and business officials at the site, carrying maps and cameras.
“All this activity is giving us hope,” Daud said.
