The time has come to refer to Haifa as Haifa • Opinion • Gila Livni Zamir

Property tax for businesses on the stairs:
The Finance Committee of the Haifa Municipality is promoting a property tax discount for businesses that will operate near the stairs going down from the Carmel to the lower city. This decision, which was passed by the committee in June 2019, will probably be brought to the approval of the city council.

When the city's leadership talks about the future of Haifa, she names other places abroad to illustrate what awaits us. Over the years, names such as Barcelona, ​​San Francisco, Boston and Berlin have come up as examples of the desired model that Haifa should aspire to. But why should we strive to be something else? Does anyone have a foreign city in mind when they come to promote Tel Aviv or Jerusalem? We too, when we come to create tourist attractions and exploit urban potential in Haifa, we must refer to Haifa on its own with all the elements of the population, the landscape, the history and the authentic and varied stories of the city.
 

This week it was announced in the media about an initiative to encourage businesses in certain staircases in the Plaka model in Athens. In the past, when I was a member of the "Haim in Haifa" faction, this was talked about a lot as the tourism vision of Nachshon Tzuk, currently the deputy and mayor of the city. We even celebrated the idea with breakfast on the stairs to El Chiam next to the Burj, which is located under the Garden of Remembrance on Shibat Zion Street. To these stairs Arriving from Amir Street, which is located below the recruiting office and the beautiful Bay Club Hotel. An area that few Haifa residents come to, if at all, and there are spacious stairs in a renovated and excellent condition, instead of a small square, and everything overlooks a spectacular view of the lower city and the port of Haifa. We invited the audience to see what can be done from the stairs and how to turn the topographical problem into a touristic and economic asset.
We gathered on the morning of Friday June 2015 at the stairs of El Khayam that Haifa Municipality had cleaned at our request the day before. Some of us brought something delicious, others volunteered to be a waiter. We opened an umbrella, spread checkered tablecloths on the tables and the turban was placed on them. The guests arrived and it was just lovely. This is how we wanted to show that it is right to adopt the Plaka model for the Haifa stairs.

The stairs are part of our lives
The most interesting stairs in Haifa are found in the oldest parts of it. They have stair tours and until a year ago, there was a stair race here that brought crowds of people from all over the country who ran up the stairs from the lower city to the heights of Carmel. Along the staircases live people whose stairs are a part of their lives and in my life - the stairs are an important route: the Spinoza stairs near my house are the main axis. Years ago I wrote a story about the stairs, which dates back to the early 80s, as a graphic design student at the Wizo Design Academic Center where I studied and which lived on Hana Sanesh Street. The stairs were part of my and my student friend's walking route to his home on Hillel Street. Later we got married and started a family and our house is on Montefiore Street, a few minutes' walk from the stairs. We have lived there for 34 years and today the stairs are also the way I go to the homes of our next generation.

On the Spinoza stairs I go down to the corner of Bar Giora to visit my home, her family and my two granddaughters. My eldest granddaughter, Daniela, goes with her mother every morning to the bilingual kindergarten on Hillel Street, from their house and is sure that Spinoza is someone who lives on the stairs and she even talks to the Claestro painted on them.
To pick up my granddaughter from kindergarten, I go down the Shmuel stairs that start at the Hess Montefiore intersection, on the path that passes between condominiums with beautiful courtyards on the ground floor, I turn to a quiet alley and at the back of it I go down to the Giora bar at the Hess intersection, from there I continue down the stairs to Hillel Street and then pick up my granddaughter From the bilingual garden, together we go down the alley to Masada Street to Carmelit, with her we go home to the Golomb station, exit the station door and then stop to observe the spectacular view of the blue sea looking over the roofs of the houses and between the trees. Go down the Vilansky stairs and cross the Shachar Alley to Hess Street and from there go up the street to Grandpa and Grandma's house.      

In order to To visit my son who lives on Masada Street, I walk down Hess Street, crossing Arlozorov And go down the Koresh stairs, cross Hillel Street and continue to the corner of Koresh-Tiberias and from there turn right to Masada Street. When I'm in the center of Carmel, I Prefers to go home through fence steps that flow between beautiful houses surrounded by pine trees And well-kept gardening at the edge of the stairs, to enjoy the peace and nature. Get to Hasmonaim Street - Wingate And from there continue to Montefiore Street, from Masada Street I go down the Safed stairs or the Emek stairs towards Ben Yehuda Street to get to the bus at the funds house. At Ma'alot Hanaviim I go down towards the Palmer Gate and this is just part of the routine.

the stairs They are a hiking trail that you never get enough of. During my life in Haifa, I traveled to many other places Stairs that lead from here to there, I discovered hidden worlds and I can only understand who they want Discovering Haifa through this unusual route that is so typical of Haifa. It's a shame they don't clean and maintain them on a regular basis, especially in the plateau areas Hadar and below, where the state of the stairs is characterized by dirt and wide, neglected edges.

Tavern in the stairwell
However, the initiative to establish businesses in the stairs is puzzling to me and is completely unrelated to the reality of life in the Haifa stairs. I don't see any similarity between most of the stairs in Haifa and the stairs of the Plaka in Athens that can be a comparative basis for this kind of initiative and all that involves investing in its development. The stairs go through houses, most of which are shared, so the possibility that one of the neighbors will open a cafe, tavern, souvenir shop or a small and picturesque workshop in the stairwell or in the common yard is a romantic, nice but unrealistic idea. At the top of the Spinoza stairs there is a school and in front of it is a daycare center for children at risk. Knowing the people living on the Spinoza Stairs, it doesn't seem to me that anyone would agree to a public business in their field or leave their job to wait every day for casual guests who would like to drink coffee or buy a ceramic plate with a Haifa landscape painted on it.

Go especially to the staircase to drink coffee
I see no reason why the people living in the houses on the stairs would choose an adventure with low financial business programming at a suicidal level. Property tax discount? It seems to me that the debts from such a business would be more difficult to repay than paying the full price of the property tax. And what's the point? After all, the streets that are convenient for access in Hadar and also in Carmel have plenty of cafes and various shops. Why would a person go specifically to a staircase to drink coffee or buy a souvenir? On the other hand, in the situation of many empty, abandoned and neglected properties, wouldn't it be better to encourage the occupancy of empty and neglected properties located on Hadar streets such as Yosef, Pevzner, Jerusalem and Nordeau? And also in the more typical residential streets like the Rashi Hess Ramban intersection? Like in Hess 1 corner Arlozorov where there is an entire commercial floor closed and neglected at street level? In terms of their contribution to the tourist and business diversity, the revitalization of the streets and the improvement of the urban visibility, their contribution was apparently greater than betting on the stairs. It seems to me that it would have been enough to place benches for rest, taps for drinking and maybe think of a narrative content for each flight of stairs. Like the portrait of Spinoza standing in front of Balfour. It's definitely a simple and cheap step to make them interesting.

The list of staircases chosen to encourage the establishment of businesses that will receive property tax discounts
Those who know them can only wonder what is the reason and rationale for choosing Gedera, Spinoza, Ha'emek and Safed stairs, when there are much more suitable stairs where there are businesses already today and staircases with much more realistic programming for establishing businesses in them or in a close relationship to them

A cafe or tavern near the Burj
On the other hand, there are places where the stairs do invite businesses and in some it turns out that there are even some! The stairs connecting Halutz and Herzl streets in front of the market and the Ora and Ampi stairs are full of small businesses that have been there for as long as I can remember. The same goes for the stairs between Herzl and Nordau, did I tell you about the stairs to the end? After all, it is only natural that there should be a cafe or a tavern near the Burj, which is expected to be a wework, a residence and a connection between the memorial garden in Hadar and Wadi Salib. When you go down to Ma'ale Ha-Hat'er Street and cross the road to the stairs going down to Luadi, you can enter the house opposite, on the ground floor of which there is an amazing and spacious studio of the artist Tamar Messer. Tamar's artistic works are purchased and displayed in museums and libraries around the world. Her beautiful studio only illustrates the potential in the ancient area of ​​Haifa that enables the stairs initiative. From there you can go down the stairs of the Alley of the Peoples or the Ajlon stairs that lead to the Kiryat Havlam through the ancient houses of Wadi Salib, where the ancient and picturesque alleys are found as in ancient Jerusalem, as in Safed, Acre and ancient Jaffa. In the surroundings of the lower city and the ancient quarter of Haifa there is the great potential of small, culinary and tourist attractions that connect to the picturesque architecture of the ancient buildings. An excellent example of this can be found at Hammam El Pasha - a beautiful restaurant and gallery run by Arne Brander. Around it stand closed, desolate and crumbling spaces and buildings.

places These contain the historical stories of Haifa from which it is possible to create a unique interest for the city, To revitalize and flourish life in Haifa as it is, without forcing the import of another place from Israel Other.