This is a follow-up to the article I published about two months ago during the election period in Haifa on the future of the casino building in Bat Galim - "What about the casino building and the election year".
I couldn't believe with what urgency and lightning speed the news came out that approval for the construction of a hotel in the casino complex is being advanced, and this under the new presidency of the mayor of Haifa, Mr. Yona Yahav.
Next Monday, 24/06/24, the meeting of the local committee for planning and construction of the city of Haifa will convene and discuss the plan to build a boutique hotel at the "Casino" site in Bat Galim.
Changing the land use and the hotel plan
The plan is signed by the office of Gordon Eder, which proposes a change of land use - from a site for buildings and public institutions, it will become a tourist site, and this is to build a hotel in the complex with 110 rooms. That is, a hotel will be built on the complex, which is spread over about 6 dunams and includes the area of the nostalgic Bat Galim pool that has been neglected over the years. The plan describes the construction of a 2-story addition above the casino building and part of a new 3-story building to be built on the remains of the pool court. The new addition will be designed in the Bauhaus style.
Disappointment or joy for the residents of the neighborhood?
Those who will be happy with the approval of the plan will of course be the developers and will even make sure that the Haifa city engineer recommends the approval of the plan which is in line with the vision of strengthening Haifa's position as a tourist city.
It is surprising that the plan for the previous hotel from October 2017 was rejected and rejected by the chairman of the Green faction, Mr. Avihu Han and Ron Hanan, who managed to get the hotel construction plan off the agenda.
Statements separately and actions separately
It seems that Avihu Han's statement that the municipality of Haifa should buy and renovate the casino building and turn it into a public building for the benefit of the residents of Bat Galim and Haifa as a whole is getting further and further away. The only thing that will come true is that according to the new plan, the complex will not have a separating fence, so that parts of it will be open to visitors. But it seems that the decisions in favor of the development of the neighborhood are taken only in the meeting rooms and do not correspond to the opinion of the residents who live there.
It is true that there will be a connection to the architecture of the period of the last century through the "Bauhaus" style, but it is only a disguise since in the end the result will be an addition of 2 floors beyond the existing ones which will further block the coastline. Such approval will set a precedent and encourage more such initiatives in the neighborhood to be built on the first line of the beach.
In the meantime, I wish you to enjoy and stroll through the magical neighborhood through the paintings I drew with the views of the beach and the unique boulevards.
Even when something is done in Haifa, the Haifa resistance movement opposes. Sit quietly and let the city develop
We must demand a percentage of the profits from the developer, that the public space is a concession and not a private space of the developer or operator, it is public space, it is located on the sea on the first coastline, something that will constitute an infringement of freedom of movement as is the case in the Sea of Galilee where the hotel took over the space, the public must enjoy a return that will reduce the property tax at least
In my opinion, this is a cry for generations and there is no way back... the first line to the sea rises to at least another 4 floors, they promised the tenants mountains and hills that will not be realized like every election campaign. Yahav is 80 years old, he doesn't really care what they apparently do there, he's a hedonist and loves publicity and fame, for him it's the conciliation project that won the permit and defeated Kalish... The hotel that will be built may bring some income to the residents of Haifa, but it will bring with it a lot of crime and prostitution in a neighborhood that was once a mess and now they We recover and walk towards the King's Road. There won't be a place to sit and swim as soon as there is a hotel there... but we can make a community place there, a place where the children of the neighborhood as well as the elderly will have a warm and pleasant place with motivation for everyone, everyone will flourish, there will continue to be a promenade and there will even be a breeze for the association to fight cancer.. the patients and the convalescents will have more fun …
Residents of Haifa, I recommend you resist with all your might.
Here in Tel Aviv shared uses and/or transitions for the benefit of the public were also promised in exchange for benefits to entrepreneurs, it doesn't work, the citizens lose. Moreover, the damage to the open landscape by the sea will be forever, even the court will not be able to help.
Say are you from Stol? A rocky beach on which sits a white elephant that was once a magnificent building. What is the problem with using it as a hotel for the world's rich? They will come and eat ice cream in the corner and buy an apartment on the way at an insane price. Come on, look for stray cats, because there will finally be a happy place here
In Haifa, only 3 km of bathing beaches are declared out of a 17 km stretch of beach.
You stole the hersh sheep.
In the small area where the small bathing beaches in Haifa can still be expanded, which have to serve hundreds of thousands of residents from Haifa and the surrounding area, a strip of beach that borders on some of the best bathing beaches in the country is being taken away and given to a hotel developer who will take over it when it is designated as mostly public space.
Does not smell corruption?
This is the best quality area in Haifa. Haifa has very few points that the city is right on the waterfront and this is one of the few.
There is a planning and moral justification, when the area of the beaches that the city has is so small and on the other hand they want to add tens of thousands of residents to the neighborhoods adjacent to the beaches of Bat Galim, to demand with all their might to exchange land. Don't let the entrepreneur take over public space. There is no justification for a hotel that occupies a huge area right on the waterfront, an area that is adjacent to declared beaches and could increase the beach next to it by 2 times, something that is needed for tourism and leisure much more than a private hotel.
The casino building must be completely abolished and its entire area, including the pool, designated for bathing beaches
You have to move forward. Don't live on the past. Consider that the hotel will bring employment. Company. cleanliness gardening. Supervision. the boardwalk The pool will be renovated. Move forward, the world is not frozen in time. stop crying Enough whining. There is much, much, much to do in all of Haifa.
Who doesn't want to. Living the past, moving abroad.
Orna - there are bathing beach areas only at the water line.
Hotels that bring employment should not take up space to enlarge the already small bathing beaches.
The same good employment and tourism can come even if this hotel is built in another location, for example in the empty lot that has been abandoned for twenty years near the shopping center (Mega Carrefour)
All the best, all the renovation of the hotel building, a livelihood for everyone, a beneficial advance for Haifa, the fanatics will die
There is no bigotry here. This is an area designated for public buildings and for the public benefit that is being given over to a private developer's area for what and why?
Take down this ugly thing and open the boulevard to the sea..the structure there is a disgusting thing
As someone who was born and raised in Haifa, in my opinion and in my view Haifa is a dead city, and the leftist mayors continue to destroy and rob it, slowly and surely
As someone who was born and raised in Israel, the right-wing prime minister continues to kill it slowly and surely
It is the right wing with the system of ruling capitalists that destroyed the country, deprived the public of rights to public assets, robbed it of civil and legal rights so that its rule prevented it from governing, and the public swallowed the frog, on October 7 what would happen if there was a government that was committed to the safety and life of its citizens and not to some hill Crazy in the heart of Samaria or to some yeshiva rabbi
Instead of rehabilitating and creating something for the residents, they are going to build an unnecessary real estate monster and lose another piece of living beach for the residents. A dubious and completely unnecessary deal.
Right
Everything is better than it is now. You have to be smart and not stubborn. Well done.
Just this week, the new water sports center was inaugurated in Tel Aviv, which was built in place of the dolphinarium. The Municipality of Tel Aviv insisted that the purpose of the dolphinarium would not change, and that it would remain a public building and made an exchange of space so that the place would be a center and an open bathing beach.
Here is the same case in Haifa. A developer purchased a building on land that is generally an area for a public building, and wants a hotel. Not just a hotel but two more floors, and two more buildings that will extend the blocking of the promenade from the sea.
As part of the new fraud presentation, they gave up - for the moment - a 3 meter fence. But as soon as the hotel is built, they will announce that the complex needs to be secured, and it is clear to you that the fence will be built. In all the new hotels in Israel, if you pay attention, it is allowed to build fences and gates as closed complexes. This will be the fate of the casino.
It is strange, puzzling, it even raises the suspicion of governmental corruption that the same people who said they were against the addition of floors and demanded that the municipality purchase and open the area for the expansion of the bathing beaches and the promenade, now that they have received the positions of paid deputy ministers and sit at the head of the local committee (Sharit Golan) and its member (Avihu Han) and at the head of the conservation committee Erunit (Avihu Han) allows two omissions at once:
The first is to change the nature of the area by building another huge wing, which the developer also wants to build an event hall in which will be the center of noise for music and hundreds of vehicles for those who come to the event hall. There is no doubt that the promenade will turn into a jungle all year round with hundreds of vehicles trying to park near the event hall, morning, noon and evening, in addition to the hotel's guests and its employees.
The public will of course not see anything from the historical area - maybe some lobby with an expensive restaurant that will charge hundreds of shekels for sitting at sea level. The rest of the hotel will be surrounded by fences, because the building is really close
For the sea waves, the developer will demand that they allow him to dry another large part of the sea in front of the hotel.
This is how the planning will proceed in the Salami method. What was promised will be forgotten, and will be added in the next planning stage
More construction, more drying space, more storage space for the event hall, another chiller on the roof for the hotel's air conditioning
And so on. 2 more floors will become 4 (with a roof floor and another technical floor for air conditioners and chillers.
Whereas in Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai insisted that the entire area be for the benefit of the public, its development as an additional bathing beach and as a water sports center is one of the most beautiful public structures erected on the beaches of Israel - in Haifa the mayor insists on running real estate combinations that will destroy Bat Galim Beach. Haifa is moving backwards and backwards ... More and more coastal areas are being taken from the public, sometimes for roads, sometimes for more railroads and electricity poles, sometimes for an event hall (and a hotel) in the casino building, which for some reason has annexed the pool area that has always been a public area,
Everything smells of rot and corruption. It turns out - they bought the gatekeepers Aviahu and Sharit.
Every word carved in stone
Are you comparing Eli Levy to a rag?
could be wonderful
I understand building on the casino area, why not a hotel on the pool area? Did anyone receive a bribe?, they didn't even give a chance to object, what about parking lots for the residents of the street, what about closing the view to the sea for the residents of the first line to the sea?
An abandoned building is worth more than an abandoned neighborhood that is going to collapse on its occupants?!
The buildings in Kiryat Eliezer are dangerous!
I wonder what Abihu Han is saying now?
Han is green in any way, Han is one big fake, I don't understand but people are voting for him, his faction is Kiryat Chaimit and not Haifa and certainly not green, it is designed to promote one person Gings Han to the mayorship of An, no values and nothing beyond that
Generally, coastal areas, all over the world, are used for tourism. This is to attract wider populations and be a source of income for the authorities and the citizens of the city.
In order for a site to be recognized as a site for conservation under UNESCO, certain conditions are necessary (category).
The place is beautiful and has development potential in several areas. It can be used for tourism which will then be a *source of income* for the authorities, or as a place of recreation for the well-being of the residents which will then be a source of *spending money* for the authorities, but I don't see why UNESCO should recognize it as a conservation site.
Personally, I have no doubt that the final consideration of the municipality will be the introduction of money. Both for the municipality and as a livelihood for many citizens.
The time has come to demolish the structure and return the beach strip to the residents. There is no justification for a "historic" building since it is not the original building. In any case, a comprehensive district plan must be carried out for Beit Galim, including the evacuation of the navy and to reach a situation where the entire area will be recognized as a world heritage site through UNESCO.
Congratulations on the initiative to restore the building for the benefit of Haifa and the public.
The abandoned building as it is, not really a gem... and it can become a charming place.
The building and the beach are a gem. Of course, in its current state, it requires restoration. Blocking the view is destroying the boardwalk and the neighborhood. Just as the ugliest hotel in the world destroys the access to the beach from Neve David and destroys Haifa's coastline.
The building has existed for 70 years, it is time to restore it and very quickly
The building has not existed for 70 years. The building that stands today is a reconstruction of the previous building - the original - which was destroyed as a hijacker, but a court order forced the developer to rebuild the skeleton like the previous one. FYI!