All the problems of the city of Haifa in one number • Opinion column • Hanan Markowitz

1. [...] a decision based on election day. I reviewed the city's problems and what they boil down to, I focused on the issue of employment, which in my eyes is one of the strategic problems [...]

2. If Hanan from a group is disgusted and still pigs then he should leave the city. Because in this city there is a significant group of property lovers who are afraid to say that they are interested in dividing pigs. In this city, property taxes are levied in a draconian manner and in this city ugly buildings are built that detract from the appearance of the city at the expense of property taxes. The city of Pinaina has a unique flea market and atrocities take place there and Hanan is not involved in business... ..

3. Beer Sheva is always given as an example. It is true that the mayor of the young man is a very fit person, but we also need to honestly say that his success in both cities is not only because of his talent, but mainly because of the state's huge financial investments there!!! Beer Sheva in the south receives huge budgets and Haifa nothing and neither does the north. Without the investment there, he would not have been successful.
   To be honest, in light of the huge investments in the south and Be'er Sheva, it can be clearly said that this is a failure and not a success. There is no doubt that Beer Sheva has changed, but in fact it has not changed the situation much and the residents of Israel do not contact there.
   I am sure that if the state had invested half of what it invested in Beer Sheva, even if there was a frog as the mayor of Haifa, it would have changed much more than Beer Sheva

4. Hi,
   As I mentioned regarding a previous article, it is worth taking a course in city leadership from the Mayor of Beer Sheva. he's amazing. Although there is no influx to the south, for unjustified reasons, he changed the face of the city completely, and for the better.

5. Thank you all for your comments and interest. I read all the feedback and appreciate the investment and care.
   It is clear that the city is dear to all of us and as residents of Haifa we have the power to change and influence.

6. Haifa has been suffering from negative immigration for 20 years. The number of residents who left the city is the same as its population (about 280,000 people), that is, it can be said that the entire population that lived here over twenty years ago left.
   Mitzna laid the groundwork for the damage and the first damages. To a large extent the twin of Klish today. He didn't understand anything about urbanism or city management, inflated mechanisms and saw concrete castings as the only way to develop a city...
   Yahav started well, but very quickly understood the shaking method and joined it in his second and third term.
   Klish received a city in a desperate situation, but the novice does not know how to solve such problems and her close friend only made the situation worse. (As an architect she came to plan a city... which is not necessary for a city at all).

   We urgently need a mayor who is essentially a politician, a local who lives here, but is very connected in the corridors of power in Jerusalem, one who lives the problems of the city and serves it.
   And most importantly: the entrepreneurs and contractors and their representatives need to be removed from the city council as soon as possible. They are one of the first sources of deterioration in the condition of this city!!!

7. Haifa has always suffered from negative immigration. I don't think that Klish is the main factor for immigration, a large part of this factor are simply the residents of the city. And enough for Hakima to hint.

8. Haifa as a whole is aimed at the old population and not the young. There is no benefit for young people and there is also no attempt to keep young people after the army in the city because the temptation to live in a shared apartment in the center is much greater than, for example, buying an apartment in Hadar to be in the center of things, close to places of entertainment, cinema, movies, clubs, there are only benefits for the elderly. There is only a public heat area, nursing homes instead of kindergartens and youth clubs. The condition of a large part of the kindergartens is not good. Old buildings, old toys, overcrowding, lack of assistants. On the other hand, there are hundreds of social workers who put their role in relation to young families? Almost nothing, their main occupation is the elderly and immigrants. The family center, a single initiative of the municipality towards young parents, was gradually closed. They say it is double what the health insurance funds give - and what does the municipality give to a new parent? Free parking? Not for the elderly. Reduced property tax? Not for the elderly. Student scholarships? Almost no shares. Events for young parents? No, only Gimlaida. Kindergartens and elementary schools are good? In some neighborhoods, like Hadar, this has also disappeared or is only private and expensive.
   So why should young families stay in this city? If they are not wanted - they feel like looking for a community somewhere else.

9. Depending on which side you look at, let's say that the middle class is very good in Haifa. Take a couple who together earn 15,000 in the Gush Dan area, at least half of the income goes on rent and they have very little money left to maneuver until the end of the month.
   In Haifa, the same couple can rent a nice 3-room apartment on the mountain or in Neve Shanan for 3200-3000, so they have a lot of free money left to both save and live well without working 2 jobs a day like in Gush Dan. Haifa is a comfortable and good city and it is suitable for the middle class and below.
   Obviously, for the rich and hedonists who are bored most of the day and are looking for attractions to spend, it is better to live in Tel Aviv

10. Mr. Markovats illustrated the poor nature of Haifa even more strongly and vividly. With reference to the hard data of negative immigration, an aging population, and the value of apartments, there is no doubt that there is room for improvement.

    Whoever is to blame for the situation, I would like to point out what is implied in Mr. Markowitz's words. First of all, it is forbidden to establish a policy that will lead to an increase in housing prices. The prices of housing or any other product can only be determined by a free market.

    Secondly, and more to the point, Mr. Markowitz demands from the municipality the setting of goals and transparency regarding their achievement. Why should the municipality set goals? Setting a goal, such as increasing the number of office towers, requires neglecting other goals, such as parking spaces, which the public may want more of.

    The current situation proves that the local authority is unable to manage private or public life - with or without goals. It would be better if the mayors recognized the barriers that they themselves impose on the public, barriers that prevent the realization of Haifa as a sought-after city. How many regulations, committees, agreements, licenses, permits, land designations, and "goals" that exist today establish failures from this and prevent the residents from obtaining adequate schools, parking spaces, and personal security? If there is a demand for a "municipal" service, the free market will provide it efficiently, quickly, and at a price that the municipality can only dream of.

    The more we remove the hand of the municipality from the management of the city, the more Haifa will blossom into a place where people want to live.

    • "The targets prevent the public from obtaining parking spaces... Setting a target, such as increasing the number of office towers, requires neglecting other targets, such as parking spaces, which the public may want more of..."
      WTF you have no green idea in urban management. Setting goals in strategic plans for growth and development from which budgets and development plans and master plans for the city are derived for the realization of this A-B of city management.
      There is no more parking and there is no place to push more parking lots and roads in Haifa neighborhoods. If anything, the urgent strategic goal is the promotion of public transportation with dedicated lanes throughout Haifa and especially in Carmel

11. Very thorough and interesting

12. Thank you very much Hanan.
    The solution for Haifa is the Sdera tunnel (a train tunnel from the center of the Gulf to the coastal railway in the vicinity of Atlit). 26 minutes between the center of the Gulf and the center of the country - and more importantly in the opposite direction - will lead to the migration of businesses to the Gulf and the prosperity of Haifa and the north. The situation today is about 74 minutes. This in my opinion was supposed to be trivial

    • Dvir The solution for Haifa is a train tunnel that will indeed send it along the coast to a tunnel through the mountain.
      As you said, it also doesn't hurt Haifa like Klish is trying to present it by misleading the public
      There will be a station at Check Post serving the downtown and Check Post. It does not bypass Haifa.
      Just a despicable decision yesterday to destroy Haifa. The construction of the Dado beach station will take 7 years, during which the beach will be closed.
      Do you understand what could happen here?

13. Smart and real analysis.
    We need a fresh and militant young revolutionary mayor who will inspire hope in the city

14. Actually Yahav did wonderful things in the city...the Heroes' Road....a tunnel that is paid for correctly...but it's lucky to have it....the Grand Canyon that he initiated....an underground city that developed wonders compared to the past when there was nothing there except prostitution at night....it's a shame that Yahav didn't continue.... Young people are indeed leaving Haifa for Tel Aviv because there is not much work... but they love Haifa 6 miss Ace. It's a real shame that this is the case.. Kalish... they are calling you to resign.. enough...

    • If you're from Haifa, I'm a jar.
      The Heroes' Road was promoted and approved by Mitzna - and in a costly way that destroyed the Heroes' Valley with a terrible quarrying.
      At Yahav HaHasiva he said there would be an adventure park, a lake park... he didn't do anything there, everything stands destroyed.
      The Grand Canyon was not initiated by Yahav.
      Lucky that the Hecht Park was approved by Mitzna with the donation of the Hecht family because Yona Yahav as the CEO of the economic company said there was no need for a park
      Near the sea and it is possible to make an industrial area and garages between the track and the sea. No kidding, that was his plan.
      I don't want to expand on the Yahav disasters, but anyone who happens to return is simply delusional. Increased Haifa's deficit 4 times within two terms. Created a large part of the problems he bequeathed to Klish. It's true that she didn't know how to deal with them, but many of the problems, such as the Knesset sharing shares in Hadar and the neighborhood's crime spree, started because of Yahav.

15. The finger of blame should be pointed at the taxing opposition that shut down the 2030 administration, which is exactly its goal: to think strategically ahead with indicators and goals.
    Where possible - put legs on it.

    • Yaron b. It's a joke? This manager for 3 years employed consultants with invalid contracts, some of whom didn't even come to Haifa, 20-30 thousand shekels to hire Klish's friend who was not approved by the Ministry of the Interior to be the CEO of a municipality, so she arranged a tourism consultant for him.. is this a joke?
      It was an unnecessary manager who did nothing. There is a strategic planning department in the municipality. You don't build a municipality within a municipality within a municipality.
      Do you really think the public will buy that all the problems would be solved if she just continued to do nothing and nothing.
      If you find one thing that this manager did or promoted, I'd love to get back to you. There is not even one thing. So much so that Klish refused to give the council an explanation of what this director does. what progress is nothing.
      It's not just that 20 members of the opposition, some of them in the coalition in the past, moved to oppose the failure called Klish and its wrongdoings to finance surveillance of council members without approval.. to finance personal contracts for the manager that the legal adviser announced that she did not know about at all and did not go through her. Just for something like this, Klish had to fly by the Ministry of the Interior. Haifa urgently needs a convened committee.

16. A serious theorist of the current situation Hanan Markowitz in the corporation lives here. Shabbat Shalom

17. Dear Hanan,
    Now it is no longer an imaginary story.. that by all of the above, they want to lower real estate prices in Haifa
    that contractors and investors buy every piece of real estate
    That nothing that happens is by chance.
    Now... (even those who don't admit it), everyone understands how good Yona Yahav was for the city and its residents.
    It is forbidden to choose an additional/alternative trader.
    If Prof. Robin Ron from the University of Haifa will not agree to be the next mayor, we must beg Yona Yahav to return the crown to Haifa.

    • The 2030 administration dealt with planning and there were some good decisions and proposals.
      It's a shame that the taxation opposition led to the closure of the administration.

18. Unfortunately, I heard this week that a large number of the immigrants who came last year, many from Russia/Boldova and their surroundings received an absorption basket, and today are returning back, or leaving Haifa. Crazy if that's accurate.

19. A serious description of the current situation. Curiously awaiting the promised sequel.

20. Listen, don't talk about the city of Haifa, it's a great city, and if you don't like it, why don't you lack money, go where all the rich are and don't confuse us, you know people like you only complain 24 hours a day, but Haifa was born here and people are sick of it as it is and we don't care about pigs or who. Mayor. You're lucky, you're not my neighbor in the block. There used to be someone like you who only complained and, God willing, he left, and with us, they're all good people, a new world, everything's fine, they only love Haifa

21. Sad and depressing

22. The main problem is that the city was destroyed by a group of real estate developers who destroyed all the high-quality areas
    Their neglected areas remained neglected
    The real pigs must be removed from Haifa

    • After Gad Zeevi finishes building his towers on Megiddo Street in the center of Carmel and another 100 vehicles from other Tama projects - and there will be another 600 vehicles trying to enter and exit Elhanan Streets in Megiddo and Yapa Nof all the time, we will simply see the entire center of Carmel standing in a one-hour traffic jam at all hours of the day. It should be clear to those who live there that in three years the place will be impassable by private vehicle.
      If they don't immediately mark a route for buses along the entire center of Carmel, Sderot Hanasi, Tschernihovski, and Drech France, we are simply on our way to disaster.

    • right!!!
      And all of this under the auspices of Yahav, who lacks understanding in the city of Mitzna, and the lack of cliché personalities

23. An important article Hanan. Shabbos Shalom

24. Only in Haifa you can find hundreds and even thousands of apartments for rent in the price range from NIS 1000 to NIS 3000. These prices are not even found in the small cities in the center of the country and Haifa is a huge metropolitan city that has everything a resident needs. The author of the article writes from his position as a businessman and some of his arguments are political. To raise opinion columns of satisfied residents and it is a shame that the system only gives a mouthpiece to one side and does not balance.

    • Michal, what you say only reinforces the problem of negative immigration raised in the article.
      If even with cheap apartment and rent prices the young people leave Haifa then it only emphasizes that the city really does not give what it needs to keep young families in it.

    • I didn't understand, did the problems start during the Klish period? Was everything good during Yona Yahav's time? Were the apartment prices in Haifa high? Was logging positive? Of course not!!! Haifa's problem started in the Grail period, continued in the Mitzna period and intensified in the Yona Yahav period!!! who bequeathed to Klish a municipality in a terminal, nuclear situation, therefore they chose Klish the company of experience that one did not know just to oust Yona Yahav. Now they are trying to rewrite history. Yona was the mayor of Groo and also Klish. Both do not have a correct vision for the city, both stopped the development, both did not want residents to increase the number of residents of the city. Both preferred the existing and not to move forward and change Haifa. who want to preserve the existing city goes back to

25. It is true that the average price of buying an apartment in Haifa is 1.4 million, but there are huge differences between the prices within the neighborhoods. In addition to apartments for 2.5 million and to the north in neighborhoods like Verdia, Ramat Eshkol, Almogi, Sabioni Dania, Ahuza, Carmelia and more, there are apartments for less than a million shekels in neighborhoods like Yizralia Hadar Halisa and Neve Paz and the average in the city is downward because the investors who are a large segment of buyers in the city "go" for the cheap apartments that will give them a return (for rent) and the coastal neighborhoods where there is potential for urban renewal. Haifa is on the eve of urban renewal, and if the master plan of the municipality for the coastal neighborhoods, Bromma, Bizraeliya and the number of apartments planned are to be believed, the average prices in the city may jump up by dozens of percent because an apartment that is renewed in a tower is worth about twice as much as an apartment in a housing estate.
    In the center of the country, the whole issue of construction clearance and construction consolidation is in full swing and the prices there are already embodied in the average.

    • This is exactly what was explained above. that the average pulls down because that is what is sold in the city for much more than the NIS 4 million apartments in TMA in an estate. It is true that on Margalit Street and Carmelia there are 3-4 million NIS apartments. But this is a minority compared to what was built in the coastal neighborhoods and much cheaper - half the price of the eviction in Benue David Neve David with a view of cemeteries and only one entrance and exit from the neighborhood and it will be even more crowded when areas add the towers, we will start to hear the residents crying about the half hour traffic on the way out of the neighborhood and we will hear about interchanges above the cemeteries like the second ugly interchange they did for Bat Galim. This destroys the the hood.

26. I love Haifa very much
    And I don't understand what the commotion is about

27. The only one who can save Haifa is Adi Sternberg who is currently running with Tzuri from Motzkin but even he doesn't know that

    • Adi Sternberg is a very talented person and a shrewd businessman from the Kadima party and then Kahlon.. somewhat reminiscent of the ambition based on political work arrangements of David Etzioni, if Etzioni had another 10 years at the head of government companies and sewage corporations I would choose him. The experience of Adi Sternberg is exactly what David Etzioni lacks.

28. Haifa does need a new young and especially professional leadership. Not party businessmen. A non-partisan list of young professionals who are experts in their field who will come in and put order together in the municipality such as: accountants. Urban infrastructure engineers. Optimization experts, industrial engineers and management. Public transport engineers. City planning architects. Tourism and marketing experts. All of these should be in the council. And a young mayor with out-of-the-box thinking.

29. Klish is unable to deal with operating a dangerous elevator in a bath house that after sixty years was installed in the municipal bath house and has not yet been activated for the next use of the bath barrel, women between the ages of 70 and 95 who have been visiting the bath house regularly for about 50 years, have to climb the stairs to the 3rd floor with heavy bags every week, all our requests to operate the elevator went up in vain

30. All over the country people are crying about the high housing and rental prices and here they are at affordable prices for everyone, what's wrong with that? Maybe the problem is in the other cities? The data regarding immigration is not unique to Haifa, it is a common phenomenon for large cities. Cities that supposedly have high positive immigration is explained by large land reserves of a price per inhabitant such as Ashkelon, Harish, Beit Shemesh. By the way, in 2017 new 4-room apartments were offered for 900,000 in Kiryat Eliezer in the stadium complex then Many flew over Haifa. To write that people don't want to live in Haifa, in my opinion, is an inclusive statement. We see even in the weak neighborhoods like Hadar and the lower city a massive return of young people, and in my opinion this phenomenon will increase and intensify with the impossible housing prices in the center (perhaps not for the rich high-techists anyway, for the average people). And there are also large sectors for them Haifa is the pinnacle of living.
    And of course there are also problems in the city, in relation to the promises of urban renewal in the neighborhoods of the coast and Neve Shanan for example and the reality on the ground the situation is bleak and you can count on one hand projects that have received a permit compared to hundreds that take many years. Another serious problem is the high property tax and the lack of efficiency (for example, they do not separate departments).
    Regarding employment, this also has an explanation of a change in employment habits, once getting a job in Shufersal or some factory in the Gulf was wow, today the majority are looking for other jobs.
    Regarding the current mayor, I assume that there are many who are disappointed in her, but it is also because of excessive expectations compared to her much worse predecessors.

    • Are the prices worth it? The Gini index, which measures the variation between neighborhoods in the same city, tells the whole story. NIS 3 million for a 4-room apartment in Carmel, NIS 1.5 million for a similar apartment in Ramat Hadar. 1.2 million for the same similar apartment in Hadar or Kiryat Haim. The average is very misleading, there is simply a shortage of expensive apartments in Haifa and little construction in Carmel compared to run-down apartments in Shaar Aliya or Neve Yosef for 900. So there is no such thing as an average price in Haifa, the variation is too high.

    • A mouth full of water, Eyal the skunk:) At Shaar Aliya and Neve David you will not find an old and crumbling apartment today for less than a million and a half shekels. What the smart investors from the center see, the pessimistic Haifas like you will only see for about another decade...and in two or three years even 3 million shekels will not be enough for you to buy an apartment In Neve David and just keep responding to every response. You are a champion in this

    • There is no matter of hatred and evil these are facts. The Gini index in Haifa is the highest in the country. I have no problem with your fantasies about Neve David, on my part, thinking that Atza lives in the next Sabion, but there is a reality of a large number of cheap, old apartments that are the majority of the apartments that have been sold and in neighborhoods that are probably neglected by investors, and therefore it is this that leads to the low average price of an apartment in Haifa that was shown in the graph in the article. The graph is a fact and I simply gave him the explanation for an average price that does not reflect and I also explained why. If it is not clear, then here I clarified.

31. Half of the problems you mentioned don't exist and pigs really aren't a problem related to the topic. Maybe pigs in the Haifa municipality. I definitely agree that employment is the strongest factor and I don't see any change in the last twenty years.

    • Hi Uri, what problems do not exist.. If anything, he only mentioned 5% of the problems. There are dozens of serious problems: increasing crime and the abolition of the city patrol. Neglecting public buildings in the city in favor of unnecessary white elephants like the desolate cable car. Failed city management that hurt businesses and drove them away. A mess in the entire municipal education system and the takeover of shelters and special education over cheap housing in Kiryat Haim. Closing 5 state schools. The huge fires lack management and destruction in wild construction. The welfare services do not function and transfer lists to associations.
      more and more.

32. Dear Hanan,
    It's been 4 years since they stole our city. Haifa is managed in an intuitively sick and unprofessional way.
    My heart is about Haifa and what two people did to her and abused her.

    • The hard data are from the period of the Yahav failure that for 15 years destroyed the future of the city with the highest property tax in the city + increasing the deficit 4 times + smuggling thousands of businesses from Haifa by the government to the Galilee and the center without any response from the municipality + a toll road in the middle of the city that was a lie to all residents and therefore more traffic jams Private + Neglect of Haifa neighborhoods and public buildings in the city.

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