(haipo) – Interview: Ruthie Schwartz, Chairwoman of the Haifa District Planning and Building Committee since October 2023, is one of the women most influential in the future of the city and the district. With extensive experience in planning administration, senior positions in the regulatory field, and extensive education in urban planning and public policy, Ruthie Schwartz leads one of the most important committees in the country at a time of planning, environmental, and social challenges.
In an in-depth Q&A interview, she addresses all the burning issues: What is a good city, why is TAMA 38 stuck, how do you balance preservation and development, what will happen to the Lincoln Rebellions, can Haifa attract young people, and what does she see in the Haifa 2040 vision?
Q: What led you to the world of planning, and what professional values guide you in making decisions?
Ruthie Schwartz: I came to the world of planning out of love for the country and the desire to make an impact. I am the daughter of new immigrants who immigrated to Israel in the mid-60s, each from a different country, and met in an absorption center in Tel Aviv. I was raised on the values of Zionism, Judaism, and love of the country. Working in planning is a great privilege, especially during this time, and it allows me to influence the quality of life of the residents of the district on the one hand and the development of the metropolis on the other.
How do you define a good city? What planning principles must it have?
A good city provides a quality of urban life and offers choices. It allows access to public services within walking distance, parks, schools, kindergartens, community centers. It offers a variety of apartments and different building types, a mix of uses in central areas, interesting streets alongside quiet streets, and high accessibility through a large number of streets and wide sidewalks. A good city is also a city that leads planning policy and is not afraid to make difficult decisions.
Many TAMAs in Haifa have been delayed for years. What is the reason for this?
The TAMA 38 mechanism creates planning at the building permit level, which burdens the system. Each request requires the publication of easements and hearings from opponents, which lengthens the process. In addition, it is a complex statutory procedure. The District Committee is currently promoting a building renewal plan that will constitute an alternative to TAMA 38 and will create certainty and clear rules, so that the licensing process will be faster.
Local and District Committee Relations
Where does the line between local authority and district responsibility lie?
Haifa is a local committee authorized with a comprehensive plan. Its powers are defined by law and the comprehensive plan. We encourage entrepreneurs to remain within the local authority, but projects that deviate from the comprehensive plan come to us.
In order for the local committee to be more relevant, we recommended promoting an amendment to the comprehensive plan and an up-to-date policy on height. The cooperation between us is good, even if there are professional disagreements. In urban renewal plans, the disagreements can be mainly about multipliers and sometimes about the height of the projects.
The issue of conservation in Haifa is controversial. How do you see the balance?
Preservation is important, but it is not the only interest. Alongside heritage and architectural values, there are also urban interests such as economic development. We need to find creative solutions and not look at preservation as an absolute value. Balance is the key.
We asked Shortz to address what quality and environmental activists and the municipality consider a success: the Mount Carmel Hotel on the Sea Road, which was supposed to become assisted living and after appeals was apparently saved thanks to the transfer of rights.
What made the move in front of the Mount Carmel Hotel possible?
There is no final decision yet, so I cannot comment. In general, I am in favor of creative mechanisms that will allow for the preservation of worthy structures.
How do you see the struggle surrounding the Lincoln Rebellion?
Our job is to balance interests. Haifa preserves open spaces like the wadis, which is welcome. But the areas in question are designated for development, so this must be taken into account. We examine the nature of the construction, the height, the coverage, and the distance from the wadis. The goal is good planning, not a complete stop.
Huge lawsuits: Do they influence decisions?
To what extent do legal and economic considerations influence planning decisions?
We are a planning agency. We consider a plan based on the nature of the construction, accessibility, transportation, public spaces, and more. Legal and economic aspects also matter, but planning is the main thing.
One of Haifa's biggest problems is that the city fails to be attractive enough to young people, who leave the city for nearby small towns or the center of the country. We wanted to check with Schwartz whether construction in Haifa could help reduce the problem.
Can planning change the trend of negative migration?
There are many reasons for negative migration, not all of them related to planning, but planning can have an impact:
Promoting thousands of housing units in urban renewal, creating new neighborhoods with modern infrastructure, developing the waterfront, promoting the light rail. All of these can make Haifa more attractive.
TAMA 75: Evacuation of polluting industry – the future of Haifa Bay
What does TAMA 75 mean?
This is one of the most complex plans in Israel. It is designed to create conditions for the relocation of the petrochemical industry from the Gulf. In the future, the Gulf could become a significant urban area with employment, housing, and advanced transportation.
A question that intrigues many Haifa residents is where our city is going. What will Haifa look like in 2024?
How do you see Haifa in 15 years?
I hope Haifa will grow significantly and become more urban. Public transportation will be much better, with additional metro routes and a light rail along the coast. There will be new employment areas like the Banana Complex. Haifa will continue to be a core city in the northern metropolis.
Notable achievements of the District Committee
What achievement are you particularly proud of?
Urban renewal. In 2025, there was a 70% increase in housing units approved for urban renewal. This is a significant pillar for the physical and social resilience of residents. We are careful about public spaces, mixed uses, accessibility and walkability.
Is there a decision you would make differently today?
I aim to shorten procedures. There is always room for improvement in the speed of handling plans and bringing them to discussion.
A look into the professional future
Is there another role you would like to play in the future?
I am invested in my current role and see it as a mission. In the future, any senior position where I can have an impact on the public in the worlds of planning, real estate, and management would interest me.
Mixing uses in Carmel
Does the Carmel need a mix of uses?
Mixing uses is a positive element, especially on intensive thoroughfares. It brings services closer to residences, creates interest in the street, and contributes financially to the municipality. But it is not suitable for every street, it requires precise planning.
Are there quantitative goals for urban renewal?
Yes. The target is derived from national policy — 40% of the units approved for construction in the district must be in urban renewal.
In 2025, we met this goal: of the approximately 19 units approved for construction, 8,500 were in urban renewal (44%). This is a significant figure that reflects the importance we see in protecting and upgrading the quality of life of residents living in older buildings.
A final word in conclusion:
Ruthie Schwartz: Happy and safe holidays to all residents of the region and to the entire people of Israel.
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Due to the very heavy traffic on the Moriah-Horev-Dania-University route, it is highly desirable to extend the Carmelit route to the university. This will remove thousands of vehicles from the busiest route in Haifa, reduce toxic gas emissions and the demand and need for parking spaces. It is worth considering establishing something like a Carmelit from the center of Horev to Matam and the bus and train station. This will also reduce much of the load on Freund, reduce pollution and reduce the need for parking spaces on the train, at the beach and at the complex. It will also serve those who come to shop in the area. By the way, this can be financed using the BOT method
🌳 The "Green Mountain" organization refers to an interview with the chairwoman of the district committee, Ms. Ruthie Schwartz, and clarifies that a policy that promotes urban renewal in the heart of the city must be maintained.
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Promoting the Lincoln Slope and Tel Aharon plan harms this, as the plan diverts new development into open space, weakens the reinforcement of older neighborhoods, and promotes extensive construction on natural woodland while cutting down approximately 4,000 trees. This is a serious environmental and landscape damage.
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❌The plan submitted today is not substantially different from the plan rejected by the committee in 2013, and therefore there is no justification for moving forward.
Alternatives such as rights transfer should be examined, especially given the high development costs that may fall on the public. 💰💰💰
🌳Despite numerous requests from the Green Mountain organization under the Freedom of Information Act regarding the scope of increasing landowner rights and estimates of development costs, the municipality has not yet provided answers.
Ms. Ruthie Schwartz, thank you very much for your wonderful work.
The planning authorities and the Haifa Municipality have been freezing construction for decades – this is harming the security of the state – preventing landowners from getting a roof over their heads, preventing new apartments that include BMDs, and allowing landowners to live in unprotected apartments. The construction freeze prevents new road connections from the Carmel Ridge axis to the coastal plain, while leaving neighborhoods isolated and a security risk for tens of thousands of residents during fighting. There is no doubt that there is a colossal failure here, which is a matter of personal incompetence, dysfunction, and government corruption that are destroying every good plot of land and endangering the public while severely harming the security of the state.
Ms. Ruth Schwartz is required to respond clearly, directly, and without evasion to essential issues that cannot continue to be ignored – especially in light of her direct professional and legal responsibility as Chair of the Haifa District Planning and Building Committee and as someone who has previously held key positions in the national planning system:
The claim that delays in projects under TAMA 38 stem from "cumbersome licensing procedures" is in stark contradiction to the reality on the ground. In practice, the Carmel neighborhoods are flooded with TAMA buildings in an unusual and disproportionate scale - gray, aggressive and ugly concrete monsters, which cause serious and irreversible damage to the green and unique fabric of the Carmel. This is a systematic destruction of the urban and scenic environment, while creating extreme density, unbearable infrastructure loads and clear planning risks - and all driven by narrow economic interests.
For over two decades – the duration of TAMA 38 – the National Planning Administration and the Regulation and Control Division, headed by Ms. Schwartz, chose to knowingly ignore the exposure of one of the most serious frauds in the construction industry: the "TAMA 38 lie". This is a mechanism that was based on a false infrastructure, which received broad and deep systemic backing from a number of official bodies: the municipal engineer, the Haifa Local Committee, its legal counsel, the District Appeals Committee, the National Planning Administration, the National Planning Headquarters – and even the Haifa District Court, which was in fact sucked into the same problematic reality. The extent of the ignoring and backing requires a clear response, and in particular, a reference to the personal responsibility derived from Ms. Schwartz's senior position in those mechanisms.
Despite the repeated rhetoric about “mixing uses,” Ms. Schwartz continues to present the increase in the number of housing units as a major achievement – as if it were the sole measure of planning success. In practice, all the critical components of proper and balanced urban planning are being marginalized: employment, transportation infrastructure, expansion of the road network, walkability, public institutions, open spaces and parks. The result is not “development,” but quantitative overload, disconnected from quality of life and a systemic perspective – a situation that raises questions of administrative reasonableness and even planning responsibility.
Regarding the grandiose construction plan in Haifa Bay, it is appropriate for Ms. Schwartz to take a sober look at reality and learn from the planning-environmental mess currently developing in the Sde Dov project. The soil in the BAZN area in Haifa Bay is contaminated at extreme levels – a thousand times higher and even more than those in Sde Dov – with particularly dangerous toxins. As of today, there is no concrete, applicable or proven solution to the problem of severe pollution, and certainly not to the problem of high groundwater levels, which are soaked in pollutants. Promoting residential planning under these conditions is not only problematic – it raises serious concerns about making unreasonable decisions, while potentially exposing you to personal legal liability for ignoring significant environmental and health risks.
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There are 5000 empty apartments in Haifa, 400 empty abandoned buildings and huge complexes that the city demolished through failed planning, for example the stadium in Kiryat Haim or the wholesale market complex and the Kibbutz Galuyot. In fact, 16% of Haifa's urban area is wasteland, empty buildings and undemanded land. There is no city in the Kiryats with even 5%. So what kind of renewal is she talking about? Everything remains in the drawers and will continue to remain so without a plan for the rehabilitation and demolition of empty buildings.
Dear Yael R., you state, to my astonishment, that "the contractors manage the planning and have turned public employees and council members into poodles, runaway slaves..." I don't know where this inaccurate statement comes from, which is offensive to both contractors, public employees, and council members. The situation is completely different and much more complex. The aforementioned statement completely ignores the serious suspicion that the planning authorities are involved in corrupt schemes. The fact that the authorities, and referring to those who pull the strings and not to those employees who do not enjoy the pleasures of corruption and not to those members of planning committees who are innocent and naive and not to those who do not know how to ask, and in any case, not referring to those who do not know what their noses are doing - have been preventing innocent landowners from exercising their building rights for years, in violation of the law - makes it clear that there are no real planning considerations here, but rather considerations of government corruption, planning corruption, which concerns regulating apartment prices (a dizzying price increase) on the one hand, while compressing a severe density of apartments in order to enrich those who want to enrich, while creating slum neighborhoods that are destroying the city, while on the other hand, preventing quality construction and not slum density in quality neighborhoods, for example, Tel Aharon Lincoln, Ramat Gural, etc., in order to prevent the supply of quality apartments, so that the crowded slum apartments will be sold without Providing a quality supply competes with corrupt projects that are about enriching close contractors and their partners, suspected to be some of the elements connected to the planning authorities. So we don't have to blame just the contractors operating in Haifa, we have to see the overall picture, and only in this way can we understand the collapse of the city of Haifa.
The contractors are managing the planning and have turned public employees and council members into poodles, running slaves who are only recruited to find shelter for the unusual and dangerous overcrowding, especially in Haifa, with missiles, the Yagur Valley, and the Carmel forests, arson, and climate change.
We must pass immediate legislation to eliminate all towers over 15 stories. Fire services do not have the ability to fire from the ground and rescue people over 60 meters.
There is no need for tens of thousands of apartments. From 1995 to 2025, in 30 years, Haifa grew by 30,000 net residents, which is less than 300 units per year based on the average household size. Neighborhoods with a total of 10,000 are now being built, including Givat Zemer, Navon, the Danya expansion, the Carmel Center, Tama 38 and the continuation of Neve David – and this will meet Haifa's needs for 15 years. There is no feasibility of loading tens of thousands of new apartments that will stand empty for decades and be inhabited in 2050.
Ilan, you are 100% right. I am not sure that the district committee can save us in this case, but the facts, in general, are correct and not new. As an architect who has been submitting plans for permits in Haifa for about 30 years, I see the situation deteriorating and getting worse year by year. And it is not that there are bad people in the local committee, there is simply no landlord. There is no manager who will take responsibility and perhaps also take a little calculated risk and speed up the slow and indifferent system of the local committee. Too bad…