The Mayor of Haifa, Mr. Yona Yahav, accepted my proposal in the city council yesterday regarding the collection of double property taxes from the owners of "ghost apartments" in the city. He admitted that there are thousands of empty apartments in Haifa and this is an intolerable situation.
In the meantime, the municipality will engage in information activities directed at the apartment owners, and will emphasize to them that it may resort to double property tax collection, if the apartments are not rented or sold.
According to data from the Ministry of Finance, there are 3445 empty apartments in Haifa that have no activity or residence at all (according to water and electricity consumption data).
According to recent data I checked, there are 5400 apartments in Haifa where the activity is very low to zero, of which 500 are ghost apartments in Kiryat Haim.
According to the CBS data, close to 20% of the "ghost apartments" in Israel are located in the territory of Haifa! These are frightening numbers.
Go out and think: In the Ramat Hanasi neighborhood that is currently being built in the west of Haifa, about a fifth of the number of empty apartments in Haifa are being built, in the Ramat Zemer neighborhood, which unfortunately is about to be built at the expense of a beautiful green hill in Carmel, about 800 housing units are planned, which are only 16% of the total number of empty apartments, most of which are in the most sought-after neighborhoods in Carmel and Kiryat Haim. In the huge Lincoln Tel-Aharon neighborhood that will be built on the slopes of the mountain in southern Haifa, about 3000 units are to be built and in southern Haifa no more than 1400 units are currently being built.
That is: on the one hand there is a huge pool of apartments that are supposedly already available for living, but instead the city invests billions of NIS in the development and construction of new neighborhoods and residential buildings, at the expense of green areas, while establishing additional infrastructure, while the wait for receiving all these new apartments will be long years. It's a place when you know that right now there seems to be an available residential solution that could meet a significant part of the demands!
As mentioned, all this is withheld from the public due to the proprietary, seemingly legitimate consideration, which in the eyes of the general public is dwarfed by the general social consideration.
In my opinion, it is the municipality's right, after warning the owners of these properties and after waiting between 12-10 months until the properties are rented, or even sold - to charge double the property tax from those apartment owners (except in exceptional cases), especially in the high demand areas and thus stimulate their income Apartments for the pool of housing units available for living.
On the other hand, with the money that will be collected from apartment owners who persist in their refusal to rent them, it will be possible to rehabilitate neglected areas of the city that will increase the value of the properties and the demand in those neighborhoods. This will make it easier for the apartment owners in the weak neighborhoods to obtain the necessary financing for their rehabilitation and to direct them to the market thirsty for available housing solutions.
Most ghost apartments are divided into four types:
A. Apartments that are held as an investment by foreign residents who do not live in Israel, and in the best case, come here once a year or two years and live for short periods of time in those apartments. These apartments are in the best demand areas of the city, especially in the Carmel neighborhoods. Unfortunately, there are contractors who have planned construction projects in advance, for narrow profit considerations Luxury residences for residents abroad. Mayor Yona Yahav said yesterday that he contacted all the contractors building in the south of the city and demanded that they not market the new apartments to residents abroad but only in Israel and to his delight there is also a high demand for these apartments from those who live in Israel and in the city.
on. Apartments of city residents who left Haifa for a few years, if to other places in Israel and usually abroad. Because some of these residents assume that they will return to their homes, they prefer to keep them rather than rent them out, even though most of these apartments are also in the areas of demand.
third. Apartments that stand empty due to legal disputes, usually between heirs. This is a sad phenomenon, there are many such apartments, most of which are in the demand areas.
d. Abandoned apartments - these are empty apartments in a poor state of maintenance, most, but not all, in neglected and weak neighborhoods whose owners preferred to abandon them rather than spend a considerable expense on their renovation. In some cases, these are apartments that have been turned into offices or businesses and after the tenants left, it did not pay or was possible for their owners to re-use them as apartments.
As mentioned, a solution should be found for all these types of apartments, although not necessarily the same solution. Several ideas for encouraging the rental or sale of ghost apartments are accepted in the world, but the best package of solutions combines both "carrot and stick". The municipality needs to inform the owners of the ghost apartments through campaigns that explain the damage caused to the city and its residents (especially to young couples and families), but in addition there must also be a "stick" in the form of a double property tax collection for those who for many months are not ready to offer their apartment for living, thus creating an additional incentive to increase the apartment pool in the market by their owners.
for further reading:
Does the Haifa municipality not know how many empty apartments there are in the city?
Urban renewal in Haifa
The municipality must set a goal for itself that within a year and a half the number of unrented apartments will be reduced by half.
It is possible that a similar move will be required but different in the reference required from the municipality, also towards empty shops on the streets of the city.
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