Budapest Mayor Aims to Block Orban’s Plans to Build ‘Mini Dubai’

The Budapest assembly will debate a proposal on Wednesday to halt Hungary’s biggest property development that may include the construction of the European Union’s highest skyscrapers.

Mayor Gergely Karacsony has filed a motion urging the capital to exercise its pre-emptive right to purchase the 85-hectare (210 acres) plot of land that Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government last week sold to Abu Dhabi-based Eagle Hills. The developer plans a glitzy new neighborhood, which locals have dubbed “mini-Dubai,” in place of a dilapidated railyard within the city limits.