THE LARGEST housing development to be built in Scotland has been branded "Wester-Hailes-By-The-Sea" by critics who fear the sprawling complex in the heart of Edinburgh's Leith Docks will turn the landscape into a Soviet-style concrete wasteland.

Plans for the massive £700 million project include 16,000 new homes to be built in nine "villages" over 144 hectares of disused brownfield industrial land around the dock area.

The work has been estimated to take 30 years to complete and will open up 2.5km of coastline, says developer Forth Ports. Outline plans by Scottish Parliament architects RMJM will include almost 4000 social housing flats, 100,000 sq metres of office space and 35 hectares of public spaces.

Critics have called the development "Ceausesculand" after the former Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his infamous housing estates, and said it lacked the vision to match the rest of the capital's architectural and cultural status of Unesco World Heritage Site.

Artist and promoter Richard Demarco, who grew up in Portobello, said: "The coastline there is one of the most beautiful in Europe, and this is the chance of a lifetime to develop it into something special that befits the rest of the city.

"Instead, we have to prevent Edinburgh making the biggest mistake. We need a vision to match the splendour of Edinburgh, whereas at the moment we have Wester-Hailes-By-The-Sea.

"This will do damage to the magnificence of the New Town, of the National Galleries, the libraries, the marvel of the High Street and the smartness of George Street. This development is nowheresville."

Demarco said the city should be aiming for a waterfront project equivalent of Bilbao, which includes the Guggenheim, or the Scottish equivalent of the Sydney Opera House. "We should stop building shops and buildings about shopping and we need to rethink this development so it includes spaces that inspire people. This is hell on Earth. If we don't rethink this we will do damage to the fabric of Edinburgh," he added.

"There's no cultural identity, no concert hall, no galleries, no sense of being by the sea, nothing of the equivalent of the rest of Edinburgh, it is just luxury housing on an enormous scale."

Outline planning permission was submitted last September, with a decision to be announced in July. The first masterplan of the project will submitted for planning permission in June and will contain details of the first village, some of the 15,900 new homes, including 3975 affordable homes.

If planning permission is granted the value of the land will jump from £285m to £400m.

Forth Ports says the project will create 11,600 direct jobs for Edinburgh and 10,100 direct construction jobs across the development period.

Chief executive Charles Hammond said: "This will confirm Edinburgh's status as a north European capital.

"Edinburgh needs housing and this is a dynamic urban space. It will take some of the housing pressure off Edinburgh in the long term.

"From the consultation we know that the community would like to see a good secure area, good public spaces, schools and shopping. Out of the nine villages, each one will be different."

The city's new tram system is not connected to the heart of the site and critics say there is no provision for transport or social infrastructure.

"It's premature to comment about lack of amenities since outline planning permission is not detailed," said Hammond. "There will be a link between the heart of the development to the tram line and to Edinburgh with car parking, feeder roads, a cycle path, walkways, sprinter buses and water taxis."

Award-winning Scottish architect Crichton Wood said: "Scotland is brimming with exciting, talented young architects, so why not hold a competition to design this in the same way one was held for the New Town and won by James Craig?

"The scale of this scheme responds too much to the car and not pedestrians, creating huge vistas that are more at home in Ceausescu's Romania than evolving from the rich pattern language of wynds, closes and squares of our indigenous architecture.

"We have a fantastic cultural and historical tradition that is being ignored."

Local opposition group Jump (Joined Up Master Planning) has organised a public meeting at the Thomas Morton Hall at Ferry Road on Tuesday.

Spokeswoman Shaeron Averbuch, a local artist, said: "This is buy-to-let bedsit land. It doesn't create communities and the Leith community is disengaged from this development.