The Hungarian government this week published details of a controversial multi-billion-euro draft agreement with the United Arab Emirates to develop an area around a disused railway station in Budapest.
The project has drawn criticism from several quarters, including the capital's liberal mayor.
According to the preliminary bilateral agreement published without fanfare on the government's website late on Thursday, an unnamed UAE-based entity is to develop the area surrounding the largely dilapidated Rakosrendezo railway station for an estimated five billion euros ($5.5 billion).
As part of the deal, the administration of nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban will be obliged to sell the area to the entity without putting it to public tender, and to finance the development of local infrastructure to the tune of at least 800 million euros.
The project is to be classed as an "investment of major importance for the national economy", meaning certain planning procedures can be ignored, as can objections from the city council.
On Friday, Budapest mayor Gergely Karacsony said the proposed agreement was too vague.
"We only know the volume of what the investor will build in return, not what it will actually build," he said.
Standing alongside the mayors of the most affected districts, he said the Budapest authorities wanted to see "a lengthy, professional consultation into the type of investment the government wants to bring here".
City Hall would not back a touristy "mini-Dubai" development in the capital, he warned.
- 'World-class' neighbourhood -
A survey of 1,000 Budapest residents, carried out in December by the Median and 21 Research Center institutes, found that 61 percent of Budapest residents opposed the project as it stood.
Investigative portal Vsquare, which first reported on the plan in late November, said Dubai-based property developer Emaar Properties was to build a 220-metre-tall (722-foot-tall) skyscraper as the project's centrepiece.
That would be the highest building in Budapest by far, exceeding even Hungarian oil and gas multinational MOL's 143-metre-tall headquarters, and is strongly opposed by the city council.
In December, Construction and Transport Minister Janos Lazar publicly acknowledged there were plans to develop the Rakosrendezo area.
But he insisted the precise details of the project would be negotiated with Karacsony and local mayors.
He envisioned a new "world-class" neighbourhood, with high-rise office blocks and residential buildings, and had the potential to attract many tourists.
Lazar rejected the epithet of "mini-Dubai" used by some media to describe the project.
He said it would be a "maxi-Dubai" and "not mediocre".