Smart City Natal is a development by Planet Smart City, a smart affordable housing company, which has integrated digital, architectural, social and environmental innovation.
Smart City Natal is the company’s second Smart City in the world which is a 170-hectacre development that plans to home around 150,000 people.
Planet Smart City developed the project in partnership with Habitax, a company that specializes in city planning, and invested around £27 million.
Planet began the first phase of the project in March 2019 and expects to move in its first residents by the end of the year.
The company is brining something new to the affordable housing market by integrating smart solutions and social innovation practices. They target areas that are experiencing housing crises with large deficits. Also, Planet works with developers globally to revitalize communities that are in need through smart tech.
The company considers its housing to be social as it focuses on peoples’ wellbeing and its vision for its developments is to create harmonious and collaborative neighborhoods.
Natal, according to Planet, was constructed through developing and enhancing every aspect of the supply chain and applying its smart solutions to generate low-cost homes.
CEO of Planet Smart City in Brazil, Susanna Marchionni, stated, “Smart City Natal offers a mix of green spaces, residential, commercial and business hubs. Following on from the success of Smart City Laguna in Brazil, we are delighted to be increasing our global presence and developing further smart affordable neighborhoods.”
She added, “Our cities are designed to be inclusive, autonomous and vibrant, so in addition to building affordable homes we have implemented a range of services including a library, cinema, free courses and other social activities which will encourage shared economics and a new way of in living in a community.”
The residents will have access to the Planet app which works as a sort of control panel for the city. Residents will be able to download the app for free. After they register, access to all city services will be readily available to them as well as information about projects and social activities which they can participate in.
The app also has an SOS button which triggers emergency numbers which the resident predefines upon registration (such as contact numbers of family or friends), which through the use of geolocation, places a distress call.
In addition to this, users will be able to access video monitoring systems which catch real time footage of the common areas within the city.