(haipo) - Mixing uses is a street planning method so that recreational and commercial areas are planned at the street level and residences are above them. This method, used in the world since ancient times, has been absent from the planning of Haifa neighborhoods for many decades. In the absence of the method, dimly lit sleeping quarters were built in Haifa and are still being planned and built these days.
Urban renewal may change the neighborhoods for the better, if and when modern housing complexes are built that will include modern planning that will take into account mixed uses.
Sleeping neighborhoods in Haifa
It is hard to ignore the fact that most of the neighborhoods in Haifa are sleeping neighborhoods, that is, neighborhoods that have nothing and nothing except thousands of apartments, where hundreds of thousands shut themselves up at night.
In the evening, the streets are dark and there are few people walking around, taking the dog for a walk and they are surrounded mainly by pigs, jackals and some sleepy street cats.
Everyone who knows Haifa knows the sleepy neighborhoods, but I will still mention a few of these neighborhoods: the French Carmel, Old Romema, Shaar Aliya, Neve David, Kiryat Eliezer, Dania, Kiryat Haim (except Achi-Eilat Street) and much more...
New neighborhoods were designed and built as sleeping neighborhoods in Haifa
Surprisingly and disappointingly, even new neighborhoods that were planned and built in recent years were also built as sleeping neighborhoods, including Nav Peres and Givat Zemar.
Residential clusters that were planned and built in the last 20 years, within existing neighborhoods, also perpetuated the planning concept of "sleeping neighborhoods" and thus the opportunity to breathe life into the dark streets was once again missed. For example, the cluster of towers at 45 Tchernihovsky Street, as well as the cluster built on the stadium that was destroyed in Kiryat Eliezer.
Neighborhoods with a small commercial center - a partial solution and far from perfect
A new neighborhood with a different plan, but with a not particularly impressive planning concept, is Ramat Hanasi, where life, at street level, is concentrated in the commercial center that was built near the residential buildings and which breathes life into the neighborhood to a certain extent. Another neighborhood is Sabioni Dania, which was built without any actual mix of uses, but was awarded the "Oscar 7" shopping center, which breathes life into the neighborhood.
Neighborhood commercial centers rarely have a positive effect on the street level
A commercial-neighborhood center breathes life mainly around itself and within it, but not at street level. It's better than nothing, but less good than mixing uses. This is how the Ramat Hanasi and the Dania neighborhoods were planned. The residents certainly enjoy a variety of services available near the house, but the street level remains desolate and lifeless.
Unusual streets in Haifa
The planners who worked in Haifa in the past, gave the city some streets that do it a favor. Among these streets you can see parts of Moriah Avenue, the Carmel Center, the Ziv Center in the Nash and a number of streets in the lower city - Shaar Palmer, Rehov Hanamal, Natanzon and the surrounding area.
Not surprisingly, these streets have become bustling with life and are popular entertainment, residential and commercial centers. This is the difference between a street that is a city and a street that is a sleeping neighborhood. At the same time, there are difficulties in these streets that the tenants face - I will expand on this later.
Mixing uses breathes life into many cities in the world, and in Israel
When we Israelis travel through cities in Israel and around the world, the streets that attract us are the ones that have interesting life on the street level. Examples such as Gol Manhattan, Paris, Barcelona and Tel Aviv can be mentioned here.
In Haifa, it's fun to walk around the Carmel center or downtown, because there is life there.
Mixing uses in Tel Aviv makes the city attractive at street level
Haifa residents who come to Tel Aviv-Yafo are excited to see a bustling life at street level, but some of us don't always associate this bustling life with the planning concept that led to this success.
An urban planning concept is the one that defines life at the street level and it is the one that permanently determines how life in the city will be conducted.
In Jaffa, for example, there are many streets, some of which are ancient and designed with an urban planning concept that breathes life into the street level. In some streets the development of cafes and restaurants, which create the life of a city around them.
Tel Aviv Municipality turns streets into a pedestrian street on weekends
The Municipality of Tel Aviv, which recognizes the potential of mixing uses, closes some of the small streets on the weekends and thus amplifies the relative advantage of mixing uses. This closure allows the residents of the city to move safely and enjoy the abundance that the city has to offer.
The business owners enjoy a lively movement of city residents and tourists who are drawn to this charm, like butterflies drawn to the light of a lantern.
Boutique hotels thrive in the attractive mixed-use streets
Where there is life, another variety of local businesses develops. Alongside the restaurants and cafes, hotels are also developing and thriving. This is how, for example, the boutique hotel "Market House", which was built next to the flea market in Jaffa and which bears the name "Market" after the nearby flea market, is thriving.
New construction in some of the modern cities of the world - includes a mix of uses
There is no reason to think that mixing uses is a concept that was practiced only among smart planners in the past. It is still used today. The most famous and richest city in the world was built, almost entirely in this concept - Manhattan in New York. The residents of the city, who live in the skyscrapers, enjoy a wide variety of services on the street level, including restaurants, cafes, bakeries, laundries, museums, galleries, and more... The businesses on the street level do not create a noise or odor hazard for the residents of the buildings above them. I will expand on that later.
Also in Tel Aviv you can see new construction which includes a mix of uses. This is new residential construction or office buildings. Here is an example of a cluster of skyscrapers in Tel Aviv, whose entire base area is allocated to commercial areas - restaurants and cafes.
So why doesn't this happen in Haifa - enforcement
Not everything is rosy - many residents and many planners shy away from the thought of living in a building that has mixed uses. The reason for this is of course noise nuisances, odor nuisances and dirt nuisances. The concern is justified in a city where there is no enforcement.
The city of Haifa does not excel in the field of enforcement, and this is to say the least... the noise from businesses that invade the street level without hindrance, the dirt and smoke coming from the hoods of the restaurants, disturb and discourage the residents.
Since the enforcement is not good, both the residents and the planners, for the most part, refrain from submitting plans that include a mix of uses, meaning that the poor operation dictates, in practice, the urban planning and perpetuates slums for many years.
In the conversations we had with students who chose to live in the lower city of Haifa, it appears that some of them abandoned the apartments because they could not tolerate the noise nuisance coming from the street level late at night.
The reason for this is the policy that allows businesses to carry out noisy activities outside the business premises, the lack of municipal bylaws and the lack of enforcement.
Enforcement enables urban planning
In order to instill confidence among the city's residents and allow for a good mix of uses, the municipality must uncompromisingly enforce state laws and municipal bylaws. In cases where the laws are not suitable - the municipality must enact municipal bylaws.
For example: the municipality must prevent the business activity from being taken to the street itself and define in an uncompromising way that the business will operate exclusively inside the building, in closed spaces - just like in Manhattan.
The municipality must make sure that the business owner does not bring business activities to the street level, such as ice cream coolers, tables, booths, events and loud music.
The municipality must define in municipal by-laws the hours when trucks bringing goods to the business are allowed to enter, this in order to prevent noise during rest hours.
The nuisances of the smoke: odor mandels must rise high above the roof of the building as well as above the roofs of the neighboring houses, through a chimney. Many residents with whom we spoke, who live near the buildings where restaurants operate on Hanasi Avenue in Haifa, complain of severe odor nuisances, emanating from the smoke hoods in the restaurants. There are solutions for this which are a basic condition for operating a mixed-use restaurant and it is the municipality's responsibility to enforce these solutions, or to revoke the business license that will disturb the tenants living near it.
In Manhattan, for example, a restaurant operating at street level must install a chimney that rises above the roof level. In a conversation with the owner of a restaurant in Manhan, he explained to me that he invested no less than $120,000 in the construction of such a chimney, which reaches a height of 45 floors and a height of over 160 meters.
The malls haven
When you understand the limitations involved in managing and operating a city that has a mix of uses, it is easy to understand why a large number of planners give up on the challenge in advance and concentrate on planning and building lifeless and dim sleeping neighborhoods.
The result is the planning and construction of shopping malls that are cut off from the neighborhoods and which divert the masses of Israel into them and leave the neighborhoods lifeless.
every word!!!!!
Right in every word. But here in Haifa everything is the opposite. We step back safely.
All we can do is envy Tel Aviv, and see everyone who ran away from here.
The constant trick: presenting mixed uses as "noise of restaurants and entertainment places under the house".
In all municipalities, they determine which commercial uses will be under each building, between what hours and what is permitted and prohibited (for example: banning tables outside, or banning music)
That's why all the commenters here who want to be a Pole who sits at home in the dark in the cold and the main thing is to be quiet outside, please find other excuses. There is nothing wrong with neighborhoods having more clothing stores, more dental clinics, more barbershops, more bookstores, toys, electronics stores, department stores for the home, offices that allow you to work close to home without leaving the neighborhood, and offices of associations and welfare organizations. None of these things disturb or create nuisances, neither noise nor light nor music.
It's all a question of which uses and also cafes and restaurants can limit hours of use and set rules that will reduce the "nuisance" in them to zero. For example, in one of the new buildings in Tel Aviv there are two restaurants on the ground floor, offices above them on a mezzanine floor, and only above that are the apartments. In other words, there is an office floor between the apartments and the restaurants, so you can't hear the restaurant at all. In addition, they installed a ventilation pipe in the restaurants directly to the roof of the building in a shaft that also serves as a garbage shaft and there are no odor nuisances.
It's all a question of proper planning and smart thinking.
But mixing uses is great.
Mixing uses is a great tool for mixing users which is wonderful... so there is room for everyone and a response to a variety of demands.
I would answer the problem of residences above businesses and not necessarily above restaurants.. it even contributes to a variety of populations. Those who are willing to pay less and live above a pub, for example, may be suitable for young people - a type of affordable housing... not every street should be full of businesses, but the best urban principle speaks of such central streets every 400 meters.
Haifa, like most of Israel, is poorly planned and poorly built, and this is really not a decree of fate - it is a decision.
Active and useful mixed streets are the heart of a city, where things happen, where we meet. This is the basis. And we need a lot of housing units, a density that will justify the various services. (And density is really not towers...)
It is possible and recommended to read and learn more about the basic principles for an optimal city, on the website of Merhav Association - the movement for urbanism in Israel, which I head.
Miu.org.il
The noises of entertainment and music are a nuisance for you, but when you live among families, the noise of dogs and children is "sacred". And young people and free people also have to endure it and there is no enforcement. I prefer to live near pubs and cafes than next to Israeli families in a sleeping neighborhood, the problem is that you also come to cafes and restaurants with the noise of children shouting, babies crying and dogs barking
In my bedroom at home, I don't mix uses? What's wrong with a sleepy neighborhood? The city should be friendly to the people who live in it and want to rest, not to tourists.
We are not Manhattan..not in the spatial size, we are Yedral who like to talk outside because of air cigarettes and not air conditioners and so on and on..those who left and miss him should return to Manhattan...
in the Dania neighborhood when it was built. We built it from a community center. A library, a post office. And all that closed. There were 2 restaurants that also closed because the residents didn't know how to spend time there. Indeed, it's a sleepy neighborhood because the residents unfortunately oppose any development except new houses and the neighborhood is closed because the residents object and the mayor takes responsibility for the fire Thirdly, people won't be able to escape because some lawyers prevented it, instead of standing up for rescue and firefighting, and that's disturbing.
As someone who grew up on such a street, I can testify that this is a Shatanz street
. In the evening, a residential area turns into a noisy entertainment center until three in the morning, a regulation of Margalit and Yahav. In a reformed city there is an area for living and an area for recreation and it is forbidden to mix them.
The esteemed reporter ignored the Bat Galim neighborhood, which has recently begun to implement the "guarantee of use" policy, where next to the residential buildings there is a building with community activities as well as cafes, restaurants, and wine bars, so that today there is bustling activity in Bat Galim both during the day and in the evenings, and those who are unaware of this are welcome walk around it in the evening
It is better to live in a quiet neighborhood, without noise, smoke, and light at night, and thus not be dependent on the enforcement of the municipality..
A commercial center is better to be close to the neighborhood, but not as a first floor above residential apartments.
This is my opinion, without expertise in urban planning..
In my opinion... poor people in Haifa must take a non-bank loan and leave the country
I agree very much. Three more important advantages should be added to mixing uses in an urban space:
1. The municipality receives higher property taxes from businesses compared to residences, which is a good compensation for the public investment in infrastructure development in new neighborhoods and especially in urban renewal projects. On the other hand, TMA 38 projects are a big loss in terms of revenue for the municipality in addition to other damages at the urban and community level.
2. Adding commercial and leisure areas to a residential building can, with proper business management, contribute financially to the real estate entrepreneurs as well." Therefore, this will also make it possible to lower the number of floors in those residential towers, which will greatly reduce the ongoing maintenance costs for the tenants and create less burden on the infrastructure in the neighborhood.
3. New businesses in the neighborhoods also contribute to the urban economy and add jobs that are sorely lacking here in Haifa.
In Haifa, which is a city built on a mountain, not every street can become a street with a guarantee of uses.
Haifa's new master plan has marked the streets that are suitable for Arov and the municipality has also mapped other streets that could be suitable.
The attempt to submit a lawsuit for discussion by the committee for one of the streets that appear in the master plan failed due to last minute opposition from those who stood at the head and led their policy.
Therefore, only one street was approved as a street with guaranteed uses and the rest remained on paper.
The plans for Moria and Trumpeldor are ready in the drawer and now all you have to do is bring them to the discussion and approve them.
And on this occasion to also bring to the discussion the open public areas plan that allows for the establishment of cafes and restaurants as well as parking under some of the areas that are used as open public areas.
As an urban planner, I know all the problems with mixed uses and no, I will not recommend anyone to live near such a complex. Beautification for its own sake and evidence of this - all the top planning and architecture in Israel do not come close to living in mixed-use complexes... They continue to live on half a dunam in the good areas and push the poor to live above shops that pollute in terms of lighting, noise, dirt and the list goes on
There are streets that reality has turned into mixed uses and the permits allowed for an extraordinary use, now they need to become legal.
Those who want live in them even today and those who don't like them move away.
Probably suitable for young and old, see in the center a ruined building designed by Gurion with shops below and residences above
I agree with you my friend Yaron Karmi
Have a good and blessed week, happy holidays
The neighborhood center: such an illusion. A neighborhood center does not breathe life into the neighborhood. The mix of businesses in it is also very patterned. You won't see fancy cafes, brand stores or even electronics in it. Why? Sometimes because of the small size of the stores which does not allow businesses to grow. Sometimes an entrepreneur is the owner of the shopping center and does not want competition with another mall he owns. Or forget shopping in a small neighborhood suitable for a few shawarmas, a small cafe, a jade, a gift shop for the home and some natural products store. That is, the shopping center does not provide city life, at best an escape from the apartment for coffee and short errands at the neighborhood supermarket, which is also problematic, expensive, without competition and lacks variety.
The shopping center 'bores' most of the residents, and this is done on purpose to get them into a car to go to the mall where parking is free and there is more 'to do'. That's how you can skip the deserted city and walk like zombies in the capital-ruling mall.
Think of it this way: the urban planning programs the residents to consume in the shopping malls and shopping centers owned by Dankanarim, Ofarim and Gad Zeevi - the friends from Yahav's Shakshuka. So why would he approve the proliferation of shops and commerce in the streets and harm the flow of his friends who own the malls? no and no. on the contrary. The bus lines will be changed in such a way that the public will be forcefully poured into the shopping malls, since they have nothing to do on the streets anyway?
Ah well the port campus. After the close business owners bought the buildings, the municipality put a hand in its pocket and renovated the streets so that there would be someone to rent the empty shops from them. OK, at least we got a block and a half of 'city', just a small problem: there is no city there. There may be a few dormitories there and now housing for rent, but the lack of a 'city' in the lower city has led to a chaos of lack of enforcement on businesses simply because the municipality has never encountered a situation that required it to be done - after all, in Haifa they are building more shopping malls and gradually destroying the commercial streets on purpose.
This is the method. That's how 20 shopping malls were built in Haifa in a period of 10 years! And every time Chamansky ben Shahar released a report, he forgot that shopping in Haifa does not support a large number of shopping malls, the mayor said to his friends at Hon Shelton - build, build another shopping mall. Haluts. You won't see a single store - we will eliminate as many markets as possible - we will destroy the market in Nordau. You will just build another shopping mall and bring the Haifa public to them who no longer knows what an urban street is.
After all, everything is directed by the planning and the planning is directed by the ruling capital. The message is clear. Go to the mall.
Enforcement is the root of the matter. In the German colony that has undergone renewal, the lack of enforcement is noticeable and anyone who tried to live there simply runs away: the businesses operate without clear hours, the businesses take over the sidewalks almost to the edge with planters, winter closures all year round, urns that damage the walkability along it and actually block it with sometimes parked goods vehicles A whole day near the businesses
At night, it is a nuisance of outside music without regulations and supervision and decorative lighting that was previously limited to the holiday month and turned into a wild competition of light nuisance and blinding the drivers.
The cleanliness around the businesses is also bad: cigarette butts and grain dirt along the street, urine smells, dirt from truck wheels and motorcycles that invade the sidewalks.
In such a situation of complete lack of enforcement, it should not be surprising that entrepreneurs do everything to exclude business and commerce from the projects. One of the developers told me: "I informed Ariel (the city engineer) that if he requires a retail floor, I will freeze the project because the public looking for luxury apartments will not buy in Moriah above shops." And so does a street like Moriah, adds 38 Tama of houses without commerce and fades away.
Central streets in the city such as Allenby, Magginin, Pel-Yam do not receive city care in promoting wide sidewalks, cleanliness, strict enforcement and signage, and thus those who bought apartments above businesses receive pollution, dirt and nuisances. In Tel Aviv... in New York... but Haifa, the "international" city, enforces like a dream.
Meyerhof Square - a very successful neighborhood center in Kiryat Eliezer! I'm with you on everything else.
The article tries too hard to market the neighborhoods with a mix of uses, also forgetting the topography of the city of Haifa.
Noise, dirt and smells are some of the problems with mixed uses, what with the problems of parking and the multitude of vehicles in one place, the endless messengers and scooters, the violence in the streets, the lack of green and wide parks and the skyline that has disappeared due to the nature of the enormous construction and the utilization of most of the areas.
It seems that Tel Aviv is the only city where this can be successful. It seems to be related to the fact that in many areas live single men/single women/partners/partners of various kinds.
It seems that those with families with a family unit would prefer a quieter place and especially one that feels safer.
In Haifa, in any case, I'm betting that we won't see neighborhoods in Irov useful soon, because in any case, the whole issue of urban renewal in the city is very slow and takes decades in our clumsy planning committees in the city.
Add to that October 7th and the trend of violent crime and looting that are getting worse over the years, in my opinion we will see more and more closed compounds and locked buildings with closed circuit cameras and security forces funded by tenants patrolling new neighborhoods.