The renovation of the burnt and neglected building in Neve Yosef was close to being realized, when the tenants encountered new obstacles
36 families in a building at 102 Arad St. in Haifa, are fighting for renovations to be made to the building. In the last months it seemed that they were going to succeed and now the renovation is underway, but in the last week it became clear that it would not be so simple.
The building on Arad Street in the Neve Yosef neighborhood was previously badly neglected. The neighborhood itself is what is commonly called a "disadvantaged neighborhood", and many of the residents are hardworking people, the elderly and people living in poverty.
On top of this state of neglect, when there is no house committee and no one to take care of the ongoing maintenance, a fire occurred in the building in October 2021, which even aggravated its condition and it was damaged even more.
3 women fight over the building
A number of tenants in the building have worked hard in recent months to renovate the building, and after difficult struggles they managed to get a loan from the municipality, for 15,000 NIS per apartment without interest, so that each family committed to pay 250 NIS every month for 60 months. 3 families in the building did not agree to pay and the committee will have to start legal proceedings against them. In the end, it is a sum of 750,000 NIS, which consists of this loan and an additional 6,000 NIS for the family.
The fire left severe damage in the building as mentioned, which is undoubtedly evident in it. In order for the building to look even just reasonable, there is a real need to renovate it and paint it, from the basement floor to its exterior, which remained black with soot.
The municipality issued a dangerous building order and threatened tenants with fines
The municipality allowed the loan "on paper". The fire occurred in October 2021, following which a dangerous building order was sent from the municipality, which urgently required planning the renovation, otherwise fines would have started arriving from the municipality to the tenants.
To carry out the renovation, the building committee found an inspector. The only problem is that the housing culture association, which will be responsible for carrying out the works, demands that the housing committee hire an inspector from the housing culture association, when the housing committee has already found a private inspector, and does not want to replace him. In order to start the renovation, a building committee was established and the first thing that was done was to register with the housing culture association and purchase a bill of quantities, from which you can learn what work is required in the renovation.
When the contractors arrived at the building, they claimed that the bill of quantities did not reflect the scope of the work at all. "When we inquired with the engineer from the housing culture association who wrote the bill of quantities, if he had any recommendations or previous work that could be seen, he said he had not yet completed projects," says one of the tenants who led the committee, "we made sure to the housing culture that hiring a private inspector would not harm our ability benefit from the loan. They confirmed to us in a letter that there would be no damage and based on this we continued to select a contractor. That's why we hired a private engineer, who rewrote the bill of quantities."
The tenants from the housing committee turned to the municipality's legal advice and explained that they had already hired a private inspector and did not wish to replace him with an inspector of the housing culture. The housing culture informed the tenants that the obligation to hire an inspector whose taste is a new decision, but it cannot be avoided. The municipality told the tenants that they cannot intervene, and if the housing culture association insists on this, they have no way to help.
The municipality gave approval in principle for the collection to begin, but in practice, the executing body is the housing culture, which, according to the tenants, does not express any urgency to speed up the process at this stage.
The tenants say that now the renovation is delayed only because they do not wish to replace the inspector they chose with an inspector from the housing culture association, but they are not ready to give up. They chose a supervisor they trust and are not interested in working with a supervisor they don't know. They also claim that the independent inspector they hired knows the area and has a lot of experience. The municipality and the Dion Culture Association claim that it is not possible to do the renovation without an inspector from the Housing Culture Association.
In order to obtain the commitment and consent of each of the tenants, the women of the committee had to do a lot of work. It is not at all obvious that tenants in a building in one of the city's difficult neighborhoods manage to get 750,000 NIS for renovations, and now, they fear, it may all go down the drain. At the same time, a closeness has formed between the tenants. Now they do things together and try to renovate and take care of the building as best they can. Even regardless of the planned renovation.
As of today, most of the money beyond the loan amount is waiting in the committee's bank account. Only after the loan is approved and the funds collected from the tenants will it be possible to sign the contract with the contractor. "Our fear is that the prices will rise and we will not be able to meet these amounts. We will receive the fines for a dangerous building and no one will pay them. We feel that we are being neglected, even when we come to do the right thing. Here is a one-time opportunity that has not been here for 60 years, and without The awakening from above may all go down the drain."
The housing culture association supervises only its contractors who have passed inspections and given guarantees.
And rightly so, she does not supervise problematic contractors that the House Committee wants to bring in.
And the municipality as above wants to guarantee the money of the loan it gives, so it guarantees the loan through the housing culture.
Looks like an attempt to bring out a bad name without success.
There is no doubt that the municipality wants to secure its money, but it is not the building's fault that the municipality is asking the housing culture to do this. Why should she settle for an engineer with no experience who was "pushed to her"?
It is not better for them to vacate Binui. The bureaucracy in the municipality is well known and familiar and disappointing. The engineering department has long since become a leave us alone department.
And who will do the evacuation and construction there?
The neighborhood is neglected. The value of the apartments is low. You have to take care of the whole neighborhood and the appearance of the street and the well-being in the neighborhood so that an entrepreneur will want to invest large sums of money in clearing a building. Because of the prices of the apartments there, for each apartment you have to find about 7-8 new ones. And there is no place or demand for it.
For a dirty building to last and be clean and in order.
You call the "Hampana" on Geula Street who will remove the waste for you, clean the garden, the warehouses and the roof.
Successfully
All over the country they are setting up nurseries for young tailors with huge mortgages at a price per tenant
As long as the building is new everything is fine. Then the building requires expensive maintenance, the strong tenants will leave it
And we will receive dangerous slams 15-20 stories high all over the country.
The illusory window with a risk-taking price has created such slums all over the country
Even in Ramat Aviv C, people who are strapped for money have no money to renovate buildings, everything is crumbling there
So now imagine a population of Keshet Yom in Neveh David who enters a 30-story tower with 1000 shekels and up to a house per month.
Zvika Barbie? You made him laugh.
The mayor? You made her laugh too.
Shame and shame! By what right are the residents of Haifa prevented from receiving loans out of a hidden interest between the Housing Culture Association and the Haifa Municipality? Who are you to force people to become members of a paid association? Take your supervision for a fee? And if we as Haifa citizens don't want your poor service, don't we as tax payers deserve to receive loans???? Where is the city auditor? Where is the legal counsel? Where are the members of the opposition who will follow this pathetic story to the end???? Our building has a lot of faults and we are not members of the Housing Culture Association and we will not be members!!! But to be eligible for loans on good terms from the municipality to which we pay taxes, we will surely be eligible!!!! And you, lady, from the article - there is a movement for the quality of government, there is a municipal and state auditor, there are Knesset members and there are opposition members in the municipality - fight this delusional case to the end for all the residents of Haifa!
The witch doesn't live there and apparently the residents there are not among the voting public, so why would you help? Nespoch is: just disturb!!!
sad?
Where are the businessmen in the municipality? Opposition, coalition, Zvika Barbie. someone? do you a favor
People try to bring in consultants on their behalf to pay them and then get benefits for themselves
A well-known method of fraud between neighbors.
I'm bringing my expert, I'm bringing you some digger that you pay thousands of shekels more than necessary and he'll put you in expenses for nothing
And for that he will reward me later with something for free.
Just go to the housing culture association, it has excellent experts
Does the housing culture association have excellent experts? And you are hiding in your name... not suspicious at all...