Frustration of years for the winners of the "price for a resident" in Haifa • Is there light at the end of the tunnel?

(haipo) - Hundreds of winners of the price to settle in the Naut Peres B neighborhood in Haifa, have been waiting for years to see the neighborhood begin to be built, when in the last few days the municipality began to inform the winners about the barriers delaying the start of construction.

After 5 years - finally an update

"For the first time, 500 "Resident Price" winners received a report that arrived after five years, on the status of the barriers and the progress for each lot," says the deputy mayor and chairman of the subcommittee for planning and construction, Sharit Golan Steinberg. "During the meeting, we detailed all the barriers and the status Handling them, in preparation for the promotion of the permits. It is important to remember that the plan that applies to the neighborhood stipulates that the neighborhood will be connected to the Nir Etzion Wastewater Treatment Plant, and that intersections with Highway 4 must be opened as a condition for the promotion of permits to the winners of Phase XNUMX. The recordings of the meeting will be published later for those who were unable to participate in the meeting."

The winning of the price for a resident in the southern entrances of Navot Peres B was in stages, with some people who won a discounted apartment already in 2020, while there are others who won an apartment only in 2022. Both these and these are waiting to see progress - building permits and anticipation of the start and end of construction, but in the meantime the process is very slow .

The designated area is located above the Naot Peres neighborhood and thousands of apartments will be built there in stages, of which about 1,000 apartments are in a price per inhabitant project. The controversy that prevents the project from moving forward is around the issue of infrastructure. In July 2022, the outgoing city engineer, Ariel Wetterman, issued a letter to the ministries of finance, transportation and RMI (Israel Land Authority) requesting that they prepare the infrastructure for the continuation of construction in the southern entrances of the city - in the Naot Peres B neighborhood. Wetterman claimed that as long as the issue is not settled The infrastructures, there is no point in continuing to market land. The infrastructures in question include connecting the neighborhood to the Nir Etzion Wastewater Treatment Institute and transportation projects.

It is not possible to market apartments when there are no building permits yet

One of the winners of an apartment at the price for a resident in the southern entrances 2022, who currently lives in the central area in an apartment that she does not own, thought that she and her husband had the opportunity to finally buy an apartment, but says that in the last two years there has been no progress: "In July 3, we received a happy message, that we are entitled to an apartment at a discount in the project The southern entrances in Haifa. We competed for XNUMX projects across the country and won in Haifa.

We went to see the place and it looks like an excellent place. The discount is a significant advantage for us, because if you buy an apartment on the free market from a contractor, an apartment that has not yet started construction, the starting price is higher than the price of an apartment with a discount. We as winners assumed that there was a building permit and that things would start moving. Unfortunately, we discovered that in practice there is no building permit.

The Ministry of Housing issued a tender and people bid for the apartments, but it turned out that there was no building permit at all. We waited patiently, contacted the contractor and received an email from his secretary that there is no building permit yet.

In July 2023, we received an email from the contractor who said that there was a problem with obtaining the permit from the Yaffe Nof company, regardless of him. According to him, after the municipality approved the project, it was transferred to Yaffe Nof for infrastructure preparation, but Yaffe Nof refuses to do what is required to get a permit. The contractor explained that he contacted the Haifa city engineer, who promised to help with the matter with Yaffe Nof. Again we waited patiently, and a few months ago we decided to take action and write a letter to the previous mayor, Dr. Einat Kalish Rotem. We sent her a letter with a copy to the city engineer and did not receive a reply.

I had the idea of ​​writing to the public's inquiries, because usually they answer. A charming employee got back to me and told me that she would contact Yafa Nof to find out what was going on. Another employee got back to me and said that Yafa Nof is not holding anything back and she doesn't know what it is about. Then I also received A written answer, that the Yaffe Nof company is not delaying the project.

I sent the letter to the contractor and his secretary told me that it might progress in the summer months (2024) and she would update. In April of this year, we sent a letter to the elected mayor, Yona Yahav, with a copy to the city engineer. We asked someone to get back to us. We explained that we are 53 and 57 years old and we do not have an apartment, and it is impossible that we are not being updated at all. There was no response to the letter.

I contacted the contractor again in April and asked for the list of winners, so that we could be incorporated. His secretary said there was no way to do that, and of course, I understood that.

On Saturday 3/8/24, we wrote another letter to Lihav with a copy to the city engineer, Lifa Nof and public inquiries. We noted that we did not receive a response to the first letter and no one is updating us and we are asking for an update. In addition, we contacted the Israel Land Authority (RMI) and informed them of all the developments. We also sent a letter to the Ministry of Transportation and the Ministry of Finance, because we understood that the city engineer sent them a letter to speed up the process of obtaining the permit.

Marmi got back to us this week (4/8/24) and said that they see that the permit was received and we need to check with the district building committee whether the permit was indeed received. I spoke with my husband after this conversation, and after checking he told me that according to the block and the lot, the permit was indeed received."

"we are trapped"

"We feel very frustrated by the fact that the state is marketing apartments at a discount when there is no longer a permit for construction," she explains. "Construction could have started six months after the win and then we could have received an apartment after 3.5-4 years. Today we are in a situation where we are still not at all sure that the permit was received.

We have no idea when construction will begin and end, and if a permit will be obtained at all. We have not received an official notification from any party. The municipality does not get back to us and it is also difficult for us to contact the contractor. I feel trapped, because because of the win I can't compete on a price for another resident, in a project that already has a permit and construction has already started. If I had known that I did not win an apartment at the price for a tenant, I might have considered simply buying an apartment not at a price for a tenant.

There are several problems here: First - the marketing of the apartments without a permit and the situation we are in the middle of. Second, we are old people and we are stuck. Also, as customers, there is no update or anyone who can tell us what is going on. We are transferred from one to the other. I considered starting to look into other projects, but it's such a shame for me because I lose the discount and have to take out a bigger mortgage."

On July 14, the Shabiru company, a company for entrepreneurship and construction, received a building permit for complex 218, and as a result, it held a tenants' meeting this week. After the meeting, apartment selection days on August 18-21 were sent to the tenants.
The other complexes are awaiting a construction permit from the municipality.

"The winners will be informed about the progress in issuing the permits"

In response, the municipality stated that the deputy mayor and chairman of the subcommittee for planning and construction, Sharit Golan Steinberg, held dozens of meetings over the past four months to remove the barriers preventing the progress of the project, while regularly updating the developers. "Within this framework, on Sunday evening, 4/8/24, Sharit Golan held a meeting (in zoom) with the winners of the price for the settler, where they were informed about the progress in issuing the permits."

"Very hard work was invested so that permits will be issued and the project will be promoted"

In response, the Israel Land Authority stated that they had worked very hard with the municipality, the Water Authority, the Ministry of Transportation and Crossing Israel, to enable the issuance of permits and the advancement of the project.