(haipo) – The Haifa District Planning and Building Committee has decided to submit Plan 2666 — one of the largest urban renewal plans in Israel. The plan, which is being promoted by the Governmental Authority for Urban Renewal and the Haifa Local Committee, is expected to create the potential for approximately 30 new, protected apartments throughout the city, and replace TAMA 38, which has expired. This is a detailed plan under which building permits can be issued directly, a step that is expected to significantly accelerate the city's renewal momentum.
A comprehensive solution for strengthening buildings built before 1984
The plan applies to buildings built before 1984 that require earthquake reinforcement. It offers a clear planning framework for three main tracks:
- Demolition and reconstruction
- Reinforcement and construction addition
- Outline planning for complex areas
The routes are adapted to the characteristics of the neighborhoods, the infrastructure capacity, and the unique values of each area of the city.
Place-appropriate Regeneration: From Bat Galim to the Ridgeline
The plan divides the city into 10 different planning complexes, while preserving the local DNA:
- Bat Galim – Emphasis on commercial facades along the promenade and maintaining the view of the sea.
- Neve Sha'anan and Technion Gate – targeted density addition for student housing.
- The Ridge Axis (Presidential Boulevard, Moriah, Abba Khushi) – intensive urbanism, active facades and public amenities.
The differentiated approach ensures that each neighborhood will be renewed in accordance with its character, historical fabric, and existing infrastructure.
Preservation alongside renewal: protecting architectural heritage
The plan does not apply to buildings designated for preservation, and adheres to strict guidelines in complexes with historical values such as the German Colony, the Hadar area, conservation complexes in Carmel, and more.
The goal: to enable strengthening and adaptation to modern standards, without harming the heritage assets that define Haifa's identity.
Shortening licensing procedures and improving the quality of life in neighborhoods
The plan unifies many planning layers into a "comprehensive basket of rights," a move that is expected to significantly shorten the licensing process.
In addition, it allows:
- Adding battalions and strengthening buildings
- Combining commerce and employment on private lots
- Addition of public buildings
- Creating a supply of small apartments for young couples and students ("comprehensive housing")
The move is expected to improve community services and the quality of life in older neighborhoods.
Strategic news for the city of Haifa
Ruth Schwartz, Chairwoman of the Haifa District Committee"This is strategic news for the city. The plan allows for the strengthening of buildings and essential protection, while preserving Haifa's unique fabric and the quality of public space."
Ronen Segal, Haifa District Planner at the Planning Administration"The plan makes the renewal process accessible and efficient. It allows for the issuance of building permits in clear pathways, while adapting to the needs of each area of the city."
Gori Nadler, Government Authority for Urban Renewal"This is the largest and most complex plan in the country for building renewal. It is adapted to Haifa's unique topography and historic environments. Immediately after its approval, we will see dozens and hundreds of requests to strengthen buildings."
What about Kiryat Haim? It is not in the picture of urban renewal.
I understand that Kiryat Eliezer was not mentioned at all. We signed with Aura in March 2020 and nothing happened. So we were left out again.
Where did the response to Kiryat Eliezer go?
When will Kiryat Eliezer's turn come? With the coming of the Messiah?
Meanwhile, the local committee approves doubling or more floors regardless of planning and plan
I wonder how they are shortening licensing procedures. What didn't work in the existing procedures?
Maybe they will announce how much to put in the envelopes to gain speedy proceedings?
The District Planning Committee: All they see before their eyes is not the public good or the public's property rights, but only the good of the contractors and developers and the approval of more and more tens of thousands of apartments without a break, because in fact this is the pressure on them from the government only to approve more and more tens of thousands of apartments in huge towers and in suffocating density. There is no reference to public transportation solutions or improvements in public transportation as a condition for adding thousands of people to the old neighborhoods that are unable to accommodate them, not in the amount of public buildings. Not in old sewage infrastructure. Not in narrow roads without good public transportation. The quality of life in Haifa is being destroyed. Everyone feels it, and those who can sell and flee to cities that are more sane or that are building neighborhoods that are capable of providing high-level services.
To push hundreds more families with children into neighborhoods that don't have a community center. That have one small playground. That don't have new kindergartens, only old and crowded ones. With narrow roads where people already park on the sidewalks and block bus stops due to the lack of parking, but they approve hundreds more apartments and shops, which means bringing thousands more cars into the neighborhood. Do the residents even understand what's happening in a neighborhood that is undergoing a hostile takeover by greedy contractors? By the time they understand, it's already too late.
A 30-story tower with 120 apartments is 400 residents in the neighborhood. Are there kindergartens for them? Public shelters? Daycare centers for the elderly? Schools and community centers? Playgrounds and public gardens? Neighborhood sewers and enlarged water pipes? Wider sidewalks for the number of pedestrians? Public parking lots? Reinforcement of bus lines to the neighborhood?
there is nothing
Don't worry about anything.
The developer will build two towers, bringing another 1000 vehicles and another 800 people into a crowded neighborhood, and who cares??? The residents of the neighborhood will suffer the consequences. The developer will already run away to another project and another city.
It is very true that the entire Carmel Range has become Manhattan, soulless towers and terrible overcrowding with no thought for the quality of life of the residents. The most prominent example is Harofeh and Smolenskin Streets near Beit Carmel. Rampant construction in the most inaccessible place in Carmel.
Live here!! Maybe you will update the public on how and until when objections to the plan can be submitted or do you also work for the pig developers?
Disgusting plan.
And in general, how can it be that part of the mechanism responsible for testing the infrastructure capacity of each neighborhood is a lawyer serving only entrepreneurs???
How come they don't throw it down all the stairs just because of that?!
The issue of representing tenants borders on a criminal offense. An attorney who is under the title of representing tenants sees the role as a springboard for connecting to other projects of the developer. There are conflicting interests here and the ones who are harmed are the tenants. In light of the day, attorneys neglect the interests of the tenants because it is no longer interesting.
There has never been a profession so despised.
Another step in the same old method: not urban renewal – but the renewal of a mechanism.
What began as a promise to strengthen buildings has, over the course of two decades, become a well-oiled system of distortions, manipulations, and cynical exploitation of regulation. Now, instead of stopping and checking, the boundaries of the game are simply being expanded – even to buildings built before 1984, many of which are perfectly stable and meet the requirements of the earthquake standard.
The meaning is clear: not an engineering need, not public safety – but the continued creation of building rights out of thin air, on the backs of the tenants and neighbors, under the guise of “public interest.”
How long will they continue to sell the public a non-existent threat to justify projects that prevent money laundering?
How long will authorities ignore the gap between engineering reality and the narrative that serves entrepreneurs?
This is no longer an isolated failure. It is a system. And the only question that remains is who will choose to put an end to it – and when.
A very important response, it needs to be spread so the public knows the truth.
The nicknames of the loyal reader of the aforementioned "grandiose" plan - reflect the bitter truth in the face of the plan
Renewal of the mechanism
A well-oiled machine of errors
Cynical exploitation of regulation
Continued creation of building rights out of thin air,
This is no longer an isolated failure - it is a method.
This is outrageous!!!
How long will they "work" on us?
In the area of the building plan, there is a significant stock of residential buildings that are economically unattractive to developers and are not expected to undergo renewal. This includes, among other things, multi-apartment residential blocks, where the developer is required to return a large number of units to the existing owners, in a manner that harms the viability of the project; as well as buildings located in unsought areas, where land values and expected returns are low. These buildings are left, in practice, without a solution for strengthening and protection, and accordingly, are not of interest to the plan planners.
On the other hand, the projects preferred by developers are 2-3 story buildings in the Carmel neighborhoods, which are sometimes owned by wealthy individuals and have a high proportion of rented apartments. In many cases, these are buildings that already meet the latest earthquake resistance standards and are not at real risk. Despite this, for decades, no resources have been invested in them for preservation and maintenance, the municipality has not enforced the building maintenance standards it has, and now their owners are seeking to exercise their rights through a developer, without spending a single shekel out of their pockets.
There is no need to exaggerate the negative planning implications of TAMA 38, which are perpetuated and even intensified within the framework of the proposed building plan. What is even worse is that the local authority is aware of the negative trends occurring in the city, but chooses to continue to promote these processes for short-term considerations of increasing revenue, and not on the basis of proper planning considerations.
The building plan constitutes, in practice, another significant harm to the fabric of the Carmel neighborhoods. The scope of the building rights proposed therein exceeds by tens of percent the scopes requested by developers in projects under TAMA 38, and leads to an excessive burden on the infrastructure and the built environment. The plan is full of "holes" of uncertainty and gray areas that can be interpreted as the planner or the authority wishes. From a review of the building appendix, it seems that whoever designed the building plan did not personally experience the complex design of a building on the slopes of the Carmel.
Without creating a mechanism for transferring rights, as has existed in other cities around the world for over 100 years, and also in Tel Aviv, the result is a deterioration in the quality of life in the Carmel neighborhoods, to the point of a feeling of physical and planning "suffocation," and this is already evident today. Young populations are considering leaving the city in favor of more balanced and planned cities.
If the planning institutions are trying to bring Tel Aviv and Petah Tikva to Haifa out of imitation of idleness, instead of strengthening the city's special character, they prefer to move to the center, to the real thing.
Finally, a fundamental question arises regarding the volume of housing units that planning institutions are working to double and triple with inexplicable enthusiasm: is there a real demand for this quantity, who is expected to occupy these units, and are there sufficient sources of employment in the city? In practice, major sources of employment have left Haifa in favor of nearby municipalities such as Tirat HaCarmel and Nesher, and the local authority has failed to retain them within its boundaries – despite their significant contribution to property tax revenues, which are higher than those collected from residential properties.
The heart hurts, a disaster is happening in Haifa, no less.
And more: Among the many young people I know, those who haven't yet settled down, good people, graduates of elite units in the army, Technion graduates – neither they nor their friends intend to settle in Haifa. Even today, when they want to go out and have fun, they go to Tel Aviv. Disaster, I said.
The plan does not apply to buildings designated for preservation, and adheres to strict guidelines in complexes with historical values such as the German Colony, the Hadar area, conservation complexes in Carmel, and more.
And what about Hadar? We'll wait for the Iranians, maybe they'll solve the problem for us...
What about recordings?
When will this issue be declared a target???
It's great that steps are being taken to ease bureaucracy. But they continue to neglect an important and large segment of buildings – multi-story buildings, for which it is not profitable for developers to offer tenants dimensions and strengthening of the structure. They prefer economically and rightly – to submit applications for buildings with few existing tenants. Wouldn't it be appropriate to add a solution such as – granting more extensive building rights in those buildings or others? What about all those hundreds and thousands of buildings in Haifa – for which it is not profitable for developers, and there is no financial capacity to finance strengthening of the structure and dimensions for a significant percentage of tenants?