Where did the levers go?
Chairman of the Contractors Association Haim Feiglin: "The majority of the construction community in Haifa - the entrepreneurs, the architects and everyone concerned, are discouraged by what is currently happening in the city of Haifa." Real estate entrepreneurs claim that the period of the previous mayor Yona Yahav was not easy for them, but it was At least according to Mayor and Head of Engineering Hadva Almog, who tried to promote projects. "Now there is total chaos," they say.
Among the contractors and architects there is a wall-to-wall agreement that the situation in the city is not simple in terms of urban renewal:
"It's hard to understand how the decisions are made in the municipality," says one of the prominent entrepreneurs in the city in despair, "I feel like it's Sodom and Gomorrah." The chairman of the Contractors Association Haim Feiglin also shares the difficult feelings that the city is stuck.
The bright spot - Hadva Almog
The chairman of the Contractors Association Haim Feiglin tells Lehi Fa about his feelings and those of the other entrepreneurs and architects. "Most of the construction community in Haifa, the entrepreneurs, the architects and all those concerned, are discouraged by what is currently happening in the city," Hoar says. "Even during the previous mayor Yona's time It was not easy for Yahav to promote residential projects in Haifa. Although Hadva Almog was a bright spot because she supported and tried to promote, but Haifa's engineering department has not been functioning since the time of Yona Yahav, this is not new and the situation has only deteriorated since then and has become even more problematic for most entrepreneurs, contractors and architects."
Feiglin continues: "Also in regards to urban renewal, the Haifa municipality has its hands tied, and instead of encouraging and enabling the expansion of building rights, so that the projects have economic feasibility and can be implemented, the policy is actually Reduce construction rights to a minimum, so much so that the feasibility of the projects is borderline for realization."
"It seems that the Haifa municipality is not aware of the deteriorating condition of many of the buildings in the city, most of which were built 50-100 years ago and they are quietly decaying," he says, "it won't be far today that buildings will collapse in Haifa as happened in Holon and Ramat Gan, and then who will take responsibility for it? "
The situation is now more complex
According to Feiglin, the situation today, after the deputy mayor and chairman of the local committee Michael Alper was removed from the management of the sub-committee for planning and construction, and in fact there is no one in charge of the construction file in the city - has become even more complicated.
The exchanges at the political level are in an unclear state
Feiglin also refers to Deputy Mayor Avihu Han and Haifa's Green faction:
"I don't know if the Greens are blocking every project in the city. Today, the appointment of Avihu Han, who was approved by the local committee plenary as the holder of the city's construction portfolio, is being delayed by the municipality's legal advisor.
His father does have "green" views, but for the sake of full disclosure: I too, the chairman of the Haifa District Contractors Association, a contractor, engineer and entrepreneur - also have "green" views. One of my hobbies is cycling on the forest paths in Carmel and in Israel in general."
As far as I understand, anyone who calls himself "green" should encourage dense urban construction as much as possible and certainly in urban renewal rights should be added in a generous and expansive way. This is the only way to preserve the open spaces to the maximum extent possible. It should be understood that as the State of Israel doubles its population from 9 million to 18 million inhabitants, this also affects the Haifa district and even the city of Haifa itself.
Building to height is green construction
It will not be possible not to thaw open areas at all, but this must be done to the minimum required, without harming nature and landscape values, and each land division should be utilized to the maximum both in terms of building rights and density, in order to avoid extensive damage to the open areas. I hope that this logic will also be internalized by the greens in Haifa, otherwise they will cause much wider damage to open areas.
The use of the land resource in Haifa should be optimized to the maximum, both in urban renewal and in the open areas, and allow both building to height and building lines that will allow for dense and high-quality urban construction as is customary in Europe and the high-quality cities of the world. The Haifa municipality's entrenchment in existing and outdated concepts will only cause economic and social stagnation in the city, including negative immigration and the aging of the population."
A conversation with a Haifa entrepreneur who prefers to remain anonymous
When you talk to entrepreneurs, you hear the same discouraged talk. "Compared to quite a lot of entrepreneurs, who I work with and who work only in Haifa," an entrepreneur in his 50s, who has been involved in urban renewal for 30 years, told the Haifa reporter, "I also build outside of Haifa. When I compare how long the whole process takes in Haifa compared to other cities in the north And in the center of the country, it's unbelievable.
Of course, it didn't start with Klish Rotem and it won't end after her, but in this period there is something I haven't come across before. Everything is arbitrary. I can get approval for the TMA on Sunday and make an almost identical proposal on Monday and not get approval. I don't go to local committees and the sub-committees for planning and construction myself at all.
It is possible to take one building and raise so many objections around it, just because it is not suitable for me to now have two years of construction next to my house. But if a TMA is done in my building and I will profit from it, now everything is fine. I really respect and appreciate Abihu Han, but you also have to understand the developers. We invest a huge investment of time and money in the project, and then it gets stuck for years because of objections that have no basis in fact This is very noticeable on Yarakon Street. Every TMA starts over - there will be more cars and the volume of traffic will increase. What do you want, not to be built in this city? I have friends who do not understand me when I say that I grew up in Haifa and continue to work here, but this is my home and it is dear to me. I just hope it changes.
Despair also in the group of architects
"When Kalish Rotem was elected, I and other entrepreneurs were happy," says a Haifa entrepreneur who has been building in the city for many years, "but now there is an agreement between us that something bad is happening in our city, and I am not exaggerating. We have a WhatsApp group for all entrepreneurs and architects and there is simply despair. Entrepreneurs consider Hands up from Haifa, they are looking for buildings outside of Haifa, which the municipality is more cooperative with. Many entrepreneurs complain that everything is stuck in Haifa in the last two years, but in practice, many entrepreneurs have a problem with it Engineering director. There are no construction starts. Urban renewal stands without construction. And the greens oppose any project... and the alleged corruption in the planning.
Yahav degraded Haifa
"I have to tell you that Yahav has a place of honor in the club of figures who have degraded Haifa and maintained its stagnation for many years... during his time hostility to renewal flourished, but with Kalish Rotem there is a planning anarchy... you never know what will be approved and what will not...
Among the entrepreneurs there is a feeling that the order of priorities in the city is determined by the children of the elementary school in class and not by planning teams who understand that a city without renewal deserves to be thrown back."
The Haifa Municipality responded:
The director of engineering at the Haifa Municipality leads dozens of large-scale construction and renewal programs in the city's old neighborhoods. This places Haifa in first place in the country in the number of apartments that are in the planning and execution stages in urban renewal complexes and in total 32,342 apartments are planned in these neighborhoods.
The promotion of the programs created an unprecedented entrepreneurship boom in the city, which is reflected in 170 entrepreneurial proposals that are currently being processed by the Engineering Administration!
This is a continuation of the trend registered in the city also last year 2020 during which 1960 new housing units were approved, compared to 1338 housing units in 2019.
All of these brought the revenue of the Engineering Administration to an all-time high with NIS 214 million in revenue compared to NIS 131 million in 2019 and NIS 117 million in 2018.
Meanwhile, the Urban Renewal Report for 2020 recently published by the Governmental Authority for Urban Renewal states that Haifa is the leading city in Israel in the number of new housing units in neighborhood outline plans and in total the Haifa Municipality promotes 32,342 units in these plans.
The report also shows that Haifa is in fourth place in the country in issuing building clearance permits with 5 complexes and 1739 apartments that have already received building permits in this framework.
And just to understand the situation, let's look at some examples:
In the Bat Galim neighborhood along the boardwalk, there are many old houses waiting to be turned into new buildings. Some were bought by entrepreneurs and some were bought by private individuals who dream of living a few meters from the sea. Meanwhile, construction has not yet started. In Bat Galim on the seashore, the construction is more complex because it involves the law of the beaches, which determines how much is allowed to be built and at what distance from the seashore.
Another example, which came up for discussion at the last local committee plenum - a lot on Yarakon Street in the Shambor neighborhood. According to council members, the decision regarding the lot was made in six months, a record time for the Haifa municipality. Council members claimed in the discussion that there is something suspicious, apparently, about the quick approval and it stems from the contractor's family relationship with a municipal employee. Mayor Nachshon Tzuk rejected the claims in disgust. The chairman of the building committee also claimed that the building was built in 1958 and is full of cracks, and he fears that the building will collapse before the TMA. Either way, it was decided to return the discussion of the project to the subcommittee for planning and construction , because of the facilities, apparently given and too few parking spaces.
Contacts with the right people in the municipality
"There is something that no entrepreneur will say with his name," says one of the entrepreneurs operating in the city, "because we all complain on the one hand, but on the other hand we make sure to have the best possible relationship with the municipality, because they are the ones who give the permits. An entrepreneur who has no connections in the municipality , he has nothing to look for in the city. Maybe I'm exaggerating, but once you have connections with the right people in the municipality, they work for you. Those who don't have connections will find themselves chasing the long-awaited permit Talking about the fact that entrepreneurs invest a lot of time and money in each project, even before it reaches the stage of applying for the permit, and then they may find themselves for years in local committees and subcommittees, and if it turns out that it is a conservation complex, and in this city, without the evil eye, throw a stone and definitely damage the building that the architect The famous Rozorov built it, it's a disaster. They invest a lot of work to convince all the tenants, prepare detailed simulations and in the end it's a complex for preservation and it's not economical.
There are also some unique things in Haifa, such as tenants who will not sign with a developer if they get the impression that their neighbor from above got 2 cm more than them on the balcony and also the ability to never be satisfied with anything, something that you really don't see in other cities with such intensity. But there is nothing To do, that's what there is and with that we will win."
The whole business is stuck
"My mother has an apartment on Magginim Street," says Tamar, a resident of Lahi Fe, "years ago, something like 7 years if not more, a developer came and signed my mother's permission to do a TAMA in the building. From what we know, the developer has over 70% signatures from tenants. Now my mother is calling me in a panic, asking if her building is safe. I don't know what to answer her. It doesn't interest me, yes cliché or not cliché, I'm interested to see that urban renewal projects are being promoted in houses that are so old, that they endanger the tenants. We are in contact with the lawyer accompanying the project and every now and then I pick up the phone to hear if there is anything new, and always the same answer. The whole business is stuck, there is no progress. I feel that they are just waiting for a disaster to happen and then they will start promoting these projects and it's a shame. The writing is on the wall, you just have to read it."
And let's not forget Habiva Reich...
It is impossible to finish an article about real estate in Haifa without talking about Habiva Reich Street. Habiva Reich was the first complex in the city to undergo urban renewal, and many are crying out that every possible mistake was made there.
What didn't they do there? Condensation-evaporation-evacuation-construction and today it takes very strong nerves and the patience of an elephant to live there. The original residents of Habiva Reich, not those who arrived after the urban renewal, longingly remember the days before the urban renewal. Today there is a serious parking problem on the street, because some houses have one parking space and two vehicles. In some buildings, the developers were not able to get even one parking space per apartment, and when you multiply that by the number of new buildings on the street, you understand the depth of the problem. Another problem is that the residents of the street have been living on a construction site for a decade and the end is not in sight. In addition, the street is very congested at certain hours and according to residents, despite all the problems and the good will of the municipality to help, it is difficult to find a way out of the situation that has arisen.
If the contractors really cared about the residents of Haifa and built beautiful and decent buildings, everything would look different. Right now the contractors are mainly concerned with maximizing profits, and the city looks accordingly....
Where "urban regeneration" is a code name for building boxes that look like cemeteries for people while they're still alive; When the facades are both ugly and sloppy, with materials not suitable for the area and not designed to last; when planning on the basis of private vehicles instead of public transport and walking; When the goal is the enrichment of the contractors and not the benefit of the residents - I have no sympathy for the difficulties in such "renewal".
Those who lack urban renewal speak out of their pockets... The truth is that there is unplanned construction in Haifa, and one of the examples is the new projects at 12 Harofeh St., Vitkin 1, Smolenskin 4, Smolenskin 28 (planned), and RNK 1 (planned). All these projects that will add In this environment, residents and cars are on the only exit route from the "Carmel" hospital. The situation around the hospital is congested even now, imagine what the situation will be after these projects are finished. Why is there this massive construction in an area where there is no infrastructure for expansion?
The TMA failed. It is impossible to increase rights in a specific way and without seeing the overall picture of the neighborhood it is impossible with the TMA to change the nature of the neighborhood. It is impossible to add hundreds of apartments to a neighborhood without considering the infrastructure. The entrepreneurs think only of their own pockets. After the completion of the construction and the sale of the apartments, nothing interests them. Let the apartment owners deal with the problems they leave behind. A tenant anxious for his safety? Let him put his hand in his pocket like he puts his hand in his pocket when his car is getting old.
Since Hahn started to be a council member, he deals a lot with preservation buildings that do not allow for urban renewal and is considered to be one who opposes quite a few projects. He said that he would restrain the projects of Tama 38.
Hadva Almog haha
There is not one thing whose development and planning was normal because of Yona and Hadeva.
There was no hole in the bucket, there were 100 holes in the bucket.
The destruction of Habiva Reich Street is only scratching the tip of the iceberg.
Everything they touched ruined the city's future for generations to come
Including a stadium in front of a residential neighborhood as if we learned nothing from Kiryat Eliezer
are you crazy What kind of urban renewal are you talking about when there are no new roads, there is not even a massive renewal of bus lines, there is no additional parking, there is no more public transportation that operates on Shabbat... all that urban renewal does to neighborhoods is crazy density:
Traffic jams, lack of parking, overcrowding in schools and kindergartens, overcrowding in playgrounds and even overloading the sewage system!
Great wisdom on the part of the contractors and developers to complain that they are not allowed to build when they don't have to live in the crowded chaos they create!!!
Articles like this just make me terribly angry, all the TMA's only do damage to the neighborhoods because they come without an envelope of appropriate growth in infrastructure!
Take responsibility for the damage you do to the residents and then we'll talk!
There is no economic viability for these projects only in cases where the developers are forced to bear at least part of the cost of the damage they cause
A shallow and biased article!!
Does the reporter serve as a spokesperson and mouthpiece for the organization of interested contractors and entrepreneurs in Haifa?!
It is enough to read the comments to this article to be impressed
How disconnected the reporter is from reality.
This is not the first time that this writer publishes data devoid of any real basis.
Michal Yaron and not Barberon,
Habiva Reich and not Habiva Reich! A little attention and respect for the state warrior on the way.
In most places it is translated Reich and not Reich
I live on Bethlehem Street in Haifa
You should come and see the condition of the buildings here
Houses that are over fifty years old are obviously falling apart and falling pieces of wall
An earthquake and we the whole building fall into the wadi
Why wait for a disaster to happen?
There is also a weak and elderly occlusion here that is not able to repair itself
Why only in places like Neve David and Kiryat Eliezer?
Because it's French Carmel? Because it's not profitable?
Houses are crumbling, people live in danger of their lives
Where is the mayor? Only when people are buried alive will you wake up
What is the address of the building on Yarkon Street that received a permit within six months?
There is also a project in West Kiryat Haim.
Hadva Almog is responsible for the disgrace that is happening on Habiva Reik Street in Ramot Ramez!!!
It is forbidden for her to continue her activities in construction matters, including in Haifa.
Hadova Almog was truly a paradise for contractors - because each Yahav faction was only concerned with how to get more donations and benefits through their status from contractors.
not surprised
This is the legacy that Yona Yahav left to Klish, a city without an inhuman and economic future. People should think carefully before buying a property in Haifa, "it's good enough." In the building, there are those who put their money in Yona's time. Contractors received gifts. They lifted monsters (Habiva Reich) and those who bought on paper did not understand the magnitude of the fall. Cliché, a brave woman and don't blame her, she can't repair damage that was done before her. Give her time and she will sort out all the mess they left her.
What bothers the entrepreneurs/contractors is only themselves!!!
They are not satisfied with what is allowed by the legal construction frameworks (TMA 38, Haifa's outline plan) and submit many requests to make construction deviations and deviations and this is ultimately what really bothers them!!!
An entrepreneur/contractor who submits construction plans without deviations and anomalies can build immediately, without any approvals from the planning committees. On the contrary, if he is followed, he will immediately win the court, also with costs. The involvement of the planning committees (local, district...) in the process is required only, and only, because of the deviations and anomalies.
So don't be fooled. What is stopping the Kabbalim entrepreneurs is neither the mayor nor the greens. It's just them!!!
The solution is, a creative lawyer, who will sue the municipality in a class action, and will reach a compromise in which one parking space for each apartment will be marked on the street.
Both for the original apartments and for the added ones as well as for the apartments in the buildings that were not rebuilt. No tabu listing. But a marking on the road that will regulate the possibility for each family to have one car that will have parking, in fact.
And this, until the municipality of Haifa will see fit to build parking lots with mass parking... for everyone who wants, as Yahav promised.
Also, as part of the compromise, the property tax on the street will be reduced to 50%... and this until the construction of the parking lots, in practice, as mentioned.
Well, really, your exaggeration is alive here - to praise and praise Hadva Almog who approved many projects, especially in areas that were profitable for contractors, that is, in the dense and expensive Carmel neighborhoods, where the residents can afford to build dimensions and strengthen buildings at their own expense.
The destruction of the Green Carmel and the turning of closed and crowded neighborhoods into a fire trap during a fire, God forbid - do you praise this?
Hello everyone
The economic company in Haifa under the auspices of the Haifa municipality purchased about 90 dunams that includes a country house named Haifa Sportsman for NIS 6 million and is preparing to invest another NIS 6 million in renovations
Instead of encouraging entrepreneurs to invest with the aforementioned money. In order for it to be economical for them
What a garbage can city that has been floundering in place for who knows how many years, could have been the pearl of the north in every aspect,
God bless you! ! !
Mzohmath, mtounaft, moshehta tuarchayth.
Too many interested parties are sitting up there and on the way knocking the little citizen.
The end is not in sight, too bad.
Haifa for Haifa?
Not sure anymore.
sad
H.L. 34 years old, graduated with 2 degrees in education and his family left about two weeks ago from Kiryat Zichron Ya'akov for rent.
Their apartment was locked and not rented out.
This is what he said: For quite a few years, the street has been undergoing a process of eviction without progress.
There are several reasons why, but we are tired of waiting.
When they contact us in the future, (because there is a land shortage in Kiryat), they will have to offer us a bigger profit in order to join. Today we would settle for less.
You can't play with people's feelings for years.
Inhale a container. This is an important and comprehensive article. Indeed, the example you gave of the "urban renewal" of Aalek Barmat Ramez, led by Yahav in the previous term, proves what should not be done in such projects. Urban renewal should definitely be encouraged, especially in the weak neighborhoods where the buildings have already become dangerous and do not have a proper quality of life. My recommendation to Abihu Han, who is soon to assume the chairmanship of the subcommittee for planning and construction, is to work with both the residents and the contractors, and it is always the municipality that should lead the neighborhood and urban texture/community vision and not be dragged along by a narrow, point-based and self-interested vision that has no element of city planning And it certainly doesn't deserve to be called "urban renewal". The contractors should be encouraged to go for rehabilitation and new construction in neighborhoods such as the coastal neighborhoods. Any contractor who has invested wisely in this area has benefited. The successful Ramat Hanasi project resulted in the promotion of renewal in old buildings in Neve David and Kiryat Sheprincek and everyone benefits. But a contractor who does not believe in revitalization in these neighborhoods and demands in return an excessive leverage ratio and permission to build more than 4-5 additional apartments for each existing apartment, proves that he is not suitable for projects of this type and does not have the required solidity. By the way, at hint levels this ratio was "only" 1:3 and look what happened there... So a smart municipality with professional planning people is the one that should dictate what is good for the city and future generations and not a single factor with narrow and immediate interests, "after the flood".
"The ratio was only 1:3" - perhaps in the first projects above the "builders". But with the food comes the appetite. Projects with a multiplier over 1:4 were approved there.
Personally, I believe that in the near future everything will balance out again, those who will buy there will be families without vehicles and the prices will drop. These are the market forces - established families with two or more vehicles will flee the neighborhood to neighborhoods of detached houses or neighborhoods built especially for "housing improvers".
Some of the mayors of the cities in Kiryat are delaying evacuation projects, because they fear that there is not enough infrastructure to increase the number of residents following the construction of the evacuation towers.
The suspicion is justified. But instead of sitting down and finding solutions for the infrastructure, they delay. Meanwhile, the risk of collapse increases as the years go by.
There will come a day, God forbid, that the mayors of these cities will have to run from one television channel to another and give reasons why people's lives were lost in the collapse of buildings.
Projects not adapted to the character and regeneration of a city. It's good that they disappear. Plan projects in the spirit of a renewable world and not concrete concrete concrete concrete so that you make money at the expense of the citizens. Renovation is needed. But also environment. And when the infrastructures are not adapted and there are no adapted systems and everything is at the expense of the community and the environment. This is also not a solution. Think for two more minutes and look a little more into the future before all the worthless towers with commercial spaces in unnecessary places with no parking, no access roads and no suitable living spaces.
If we consider only the nature of the street before the urban renewal, there will be no renewal at all. In all the evacuation and construction complexes in the city at the moment, the developer is the one who undertakes the laying of the infrastructures approved by the construction committee. In addition, it should be remembered that the developer's goal is to sell as many apartments and commercial spaces as possible - otherwise there will be no financial programming for the project. Regarding the transportation problem - it is already a matter of urban priorities. Haifa has a topographical problem that has not been answered for decades. It will not be possible to solve the traffic jams and congestion unless there is a concentrated work of the local government with the government ministries and if necessary - also legislation. The city needs to be networked with a variety of public transportation methods, including buses for rent on an hourly basis (and not just metro buses or buses that cannot enter every street), promote the solution of linking the neighborhoods (escalators for example) so that it is possible to catch a bus or metro bus that stops at a station in the nearby neighborhood With a walk of no more than 10 minutes from point to point and other solutions that have been implemented in other countries. Of course it will not be possible to meet the needs of every citizen and you have to accept this with understanding.
And when a disaster happens and a building 50 years old or older collapses, who in the Haifa municipality will take responsibility? Why exactly are you waiting for a disaster?