(haipo) - A special report of the National Economic Council at the Prime Minister's Office:
Over 172,000 square meters of buildings are defined as "unfit for use" in Haifa - a figure that highlights not only the alarming situation of abandoned buildings in the city, but also the enormous financial loss that the municipality and the residents suffer. These buildings, scattered throughout the city, can turn from a desolate property into an obstacle to growth significant economic.
The problem is that an unusable property is exempt from property tax. Thus its owner holds it and waits, at a time when the housing crisis is taking off and the municipal coffers do not receive property taxes. If that's not enough, then many properties become homes for homeless people and drug addicts.
The recommendation is to stop the exemption from property tax starting from the third year and charge the owner of the property with full property tax and thus oblige him to use the property. Full recommendations at the end of the article.
The estimated financial loss and the impact on the municipal budget
Abandoned buildings are currently exempt from property tax payments, Which leads to an estimated revenue loss of about 17 million NIS per year for the depleted coffers of the Haifa Municipality. This loss goes beyond the numbers - it prevents investments in infrastructure, education and public services that could be financed from property tax revenues. Moreover, the glazing of these buildings can generate additional income from the economic activity they may generate, such as new businesses and residences.
How can Haifa take advantage of the potential?
Just like in these cities, Haifa has a tremendous potential to turn the abandoned buildings into a significant source of income. By changing the local policy, such as canceling the prolonged exemptions from property tax, it is possible to oblige property owners to renovate and use them. Economic incentives, along with increased enforcement, can motivate property owners to utilize their properties in a way that will serve the general public.
The economic potential - from a local point of view
Beyond improving the city's visibility and reducing hazards, any abandoned building that is renovated can generate thousands to tens of thousands of shekels a year in revenue for the municipality. This amount can be used to improve municipal services, expand the budget for education and infrastructure and even rebrand Haifa as a progressive and prosperous city.
Haifa needs a change - now
The numbers are clear: the abandoned buildings in Haifa are more than just desolate buildings - they represent a direct financial loss and unrealized potential. By formulating a uniform and aggressive policy, these properties can be turned into a significant source of income that will improve Haifa's economic future and provide new opportunities for its residents.
The proposed solution - changing legislation - policy recommendations of the National Economic Council:
- Establish in law a uniform definition, and fixed criteria according to which the usability of the property must be examined for a property that is damaged and unfit for use so that it will be clear to each local authority which properties are involved.
- Creating a uniform reporting standard in all local authorities, which will be published to the public in a transparent and clear manner on the authority's website. The reports will be updated every year and, according to section 330 of the Municipal Ordinance, will contain all areas for residential and commercial purposes, the number of properties, square meters of each property, address, block/plot if any, the duration of the exemption period and the identity of the property owners.
This report will allow:
Creating a uniform and national database of the phenomenon, in order to lead to the promotion of a data-based policy.
Promotion of research on the subject.
Perfecting the market by increasing the symmetry in information between property owners and entrepreneurs, to make it easier for entrepreneurs to locate properties and try to promote the sale of properties, thus reducing the negative phenomenon, increasing the stock of housing units and local and national economic activity. - Advancing the legislation on the mandatory property tax so that:
The first period: full exemption from property tax payment for three years.
The second period: payment of property tax at a minimal rate for two years.
The third period: the owner of the property will be required to pay property tax according to his classification.
To demolish any building abandoned for over 20 years and expropriate it from the owner with compensation according to the value of the building at the time it was abandoned and not now. That's how all homeowners will want to build.
Cities are allowed to fine neglected and abandoned buildings that harm the appearance of the street and the value of the street and the neighborhood. The municipality loses fines in the millions of shekels on privately owned abandoned houses. What are you waiting for?!
D-9 bulldozers should be taken to treat every empty building over 50 years as a dangerous structure and flatten everything and plan entire districts anew in a modern design with wide boulevards and a mix of uses.
Any building that has been empty for over 20 years, if it is not renovated within 10 years, it will also be demolished.
This is how a normal municipality in Tel Aviv works. They oblige to renovate facades.
Put an end to the deliberate neglect.
There are owners who are waiting to return to receive them.
The owner is not the Arabs who stole the houses for the Jews in Arad El Yehud and Nachala in the Great Revolt
The houses belong to the Jews who fled from there.
The owners are not you who stole the houses for the Jews in Arad El Yehud and Nachala
The houses belong to the Jews who fled there in your wilds 100 years ago.
In practice there are many more abandoned buildings than those on the list. And the municipality apparently lacks the authority to delete them even though they are a danger to the lives of the residents of the neighborhoods, such as the abandoned building in the middle of Ben Yehuda, near the Mekolat. We need a strong government hand to get rid of the problem.
It should also be considered that the crazy municipality declares ruins ready to fall down as preserved buildings.
Last month I did not work and I did not earn NIS 30,000 like in the months before. The tax authority requires me to pay full tax "as if" I earned.
This is exactly the meaning of the municipality's demand to pay property tax on an empty property, to which it does not provide any services.
Simply "Israel Bluff".
Neither abandoned nor shoes they belong to their Palestinian owners who were deported in 1948
1-A very small amount of such houses
2- They left in order to return with the army to the Arab countries and destroy the Jews.
3-Many good buildings were deliberately turned into such in order to extort construction rights by investors (like the central station in Bat Galim)
This is a historical lie. Most of the buildings are not owned by those who live in them today. In the German colony with the removal of the Templars, Arab clans took over the buildings or worked for the Templars and simply moved into the buildings. In many stone buildings that seemed to belong to the Arabs, they actually belonged to the mandate authorities and also to Jewish investors who built and abandoned them, for example in the neighborhood of Nachala and Ard-El Yehud after the great revolt when the Jews fled from these neighborhoods. And houses that were used as Arab sniper positions and murdered Jews...
So you will not rewrite history.
Not abandoned houses, but houses whose owners were deported in 1948.
There are owners and memories no change will erase them.
It is indeed appropriate to act to change the existing law.
If the owners of the abandoned property do not receive within 3 months a permit to use the property as they wish, the municipality will start paying them compensation in the amount of the property tax. I know of cases where the owners submitted requests for demolition and new construction, or for expansion according to Tama 38 and were rejected.
What is the solution? Have a lovely day
Animal killers will not see a resurrection.
I'm sorry... really a very partial picture... and what about all the huge abandoned cinemas? Monsters for preservation are crumbling that no one touches son and they are in a huge volume?? Although this already requires a different way of thinking...and creativity..but I don't think that instead of a Shahit cinema in its precious location something would have risen and saved as an alternative buildings for preservation that are being destroyed one after the other in Shambor and precisely there the municipality is attacking properties and helping to finally finish Margalit Street by joining under the radar of the council members Its for the petition of entrepreneurs... and all this to create monsters that are visible even from a meter away. Time for change and hope That this will happen under the leadership of the new city engineer.. because the city architect, where she is and what she is doing and who manages the conservation department, is not wise to document there. There the buildings and the landscape are not destroyed.. and she does not preserve Nenaf Bat Galim.
The local government in Israel has been infected with corruption for decades, so it has been and probably will not change in the near future...
Haifa is a deserted and abandoned city, the daughter of a king without a crown. Orphaned and barefoot.
Well done, it's time to wake up Haifa, a port city that needs to flourish
On the other hand, office buildings stand abandoned and there they do pay full property tax.
I didn't understand how the residents lose because the municipality doesn't receive property taxes?
These are mostly buildings in neighborhoods that have changed their appearance in recent decades, in the early days of the state they lived there in a great way of life that I remember well as a child, our grandparents who came from Romania, Morocco, Poland and today the descendants also abandoned not to mention fled due to the change, let's put it mildly, to the neighborhoods of clans . As happens in many neighborhoods of the city.
Do you send your children after marriage with their spouses to set up a house on Kibbutz Galvoit Street or on Omar L. Khayyam Street?
After all, these are empty passwords.
Haifa is not a Jaffa where affluent forces manage to create homogenous complexes within the ancient neighborhoods and turn them into high-quality luxury residences.
If the buildings are not sold to the clan, it is indeed a good idea to perhaps really use them as shelters for the needy/discharged soldiers/battered women as a housing solution for a fixed period of a few months and in other words as secure and orderly public buildings.
I am looking for an abandoned house to buy a ground floor to live in for my elderly parents. I am ready to renovate and live in it at a price I can pay. We live in rent at the moment and this house is also in good condition but I don't know who to contact