(haipo) Residents of Haifa neighborhoods near the Golda Slope have written a scathing letter to the members of the local planning and building committee and the Haifa municipality, demanding that the planned discussion on the Golda Slope construction plan be postponed and even shelved altogether. They claim that the plan will cause irreversible damage to the preservation of the green Carmel Mountain, will burden infrastructure and transportation, and will harm the quality of life of the city's residents, all in the interests of a small number of landowners.
In their letter, the residents state that the plan is expected to lead to the destruction of unique natural areas on the slopes of Mount Carmel, an area that serves as a green lung and natural habitat, while significantly harming the landscape and the environment. They also claim that the date of the hearing was set at short notice, in a way that does not allow the public and committee members to study the implications of the plan in depth and prepare properly. According to them, in a previous hearing, it was decided to conduct an additional planning review, but to the best of their knowledge, this review was not carried out and no substantial changes were presented to the plan.
The residents demand that before the plan is advanced, a comprehensive environmental review be conducted, which will examine all of the environmental, transportation, and public implications of the project, and only then will a renewed discussion be held.
The letter also raises economic arguments. According to the residents, the costs of developing infrastructure and burying power lines will be extremely high, and if financed from public funds, this would be an inappropriate use of property tax funds. They point out that instead of investing in new construction on open areas, resources should be directed to strengthening old neighborhoods, buildings that do not meet earthquake standards, and a shortage of building inspectors.
It was also claimed that implementing the plan would require the felling of thousands of trees for the purpose of developing the area and creating buffer zones against fires, as well as the construction of a new road between the slopes of Golda and Givat Ha'Izim, a move that they say will increase traffic congestion, further damage the environment, and entail significant public expenses without transportation justification. At the end of the letter, the residents call on the committee members to prioritize the good of the public and the residents of Haifa over private interests, to shelve the plan, and to examine alternatives that will allow the green areas of the Carmel to be preserved for the benefit of future generations.
According to them, "The committee members have the opportunity to make a decision that will preserve Haifa's green character and the quality of life of its residents, and enable the continued existence of the open spaces that constitute a public asset for the entire city."
In parallel with the letter of opposition, a public petition by the Green Mountain was also published calling for the plan to be stopped. This is a plan to establish a new neighborhood that includes approximately 1,200 housing units, commercial spaces, and public buildings, on an area of approximately 329 dunams south of Ramat Golda and west of the Danya neighborhood. The petition's initiators warn that approval of the plan could lead to extensive quarrying, the felling of approximately 2,000 trees, and the irreversible destruction of the natural forest and wadi in the area.
They claim that this is a significant environmental damage to one of the last green areas of the Carmel, which has unique natural and landscape values, and therefore they call on the municipality and members of the local committee to reject the plan and examine alternatives that will prevent damage to the area.
Assaf Ben Levi, Haifa environmental activist and lawyer at the Society for the Protection of Nature, Message to "Haifa": "I hope that the letter and public pressure will lead to the postponement of the committee discussion. This is a plan that raises extremely significant issues, and it is not possible to make a decision with such broad implications in a short period of time, without allowing the committee members to study the details of the plan in depth and the residents to submit their comments. Beyond the demand to postpone the discussion, we believe that the plan in its current form is inappropriate, and that the Haifa Municipality should express opposition to it."
Noa Belter, landscape architect from the Green Mountain Organization Message here: "I believe that this destructive plan should be rejected outright."
Click here to sign the petition – "Before it's too late - stop construction on the Golda slopes!"
The Haifa Municipality responded:
The plan refers to the area designated according to a mandatory plan for housing.
The municipality is acting in continuation of a series of legal proceedings that were taken against it and the local committee, and in accordance with the Magistrate's Court ruling, which determined that failure to advance the plan exposes the municipality to compensation claims.
Under these circumstances, the municipality and the local committee are working to promote the best up-to-date planning that is adapted to current planning standards, while providing a response to public needs, regulating access roads, and preserving trees and natural values while balancing the public and environmental interest with the rights of landowners.
The plan significantly reduces the scope of the residential lot layout within the plan area, relative to the approved situation, in a way that will allow for a reduction in the scope of tree felling within its area, and also designates large parts of the area for green spaces.
To the extent that the plan is approved for submission by the District Committee, objections may be submitted to it.
The municipality, against which there are several court rulings, continues to delay unreasonably in releasing the Golda slopes for construction. The entire Carmel is congested, Yona Yahav, after being removed from office as mayor about 6 years ago, was blamed for not opening roads, one of which should have been the descents from Golda towards Highway 4. Yahav made public participation 16 years ago when there were protocols for releasing the lands on the Golda slopes for construction by all the neighborhood committees. Yahav and his deputy will be sued personally by the owners of the plots and will be held accountable for this.
There are dozens of plots of land that were sold to people more than fifty years ago, on land designated for construction. For decades, every time the municipality tries to promote a plan to develop the neighborhood, residents of neighboring neighborhoods oppose and cancel it. Do you want to cancel the construction? Compensate the landowners.
All the whiners here are willing to stand in traffic for an hour on Freud, but no road will pass through their neighborhood. The same thing here, let them build it for others, we won't be disappointed.
People want to live in Carmel. Let them go.
The highest property tax in the country, by the way, will continue to rise with zero investment. There are only garbage removal services in this city. Yahav will be remembered with zero action. A term that will only make his past forgotten. He should have given up his term.
And of course, the failed old man is selling Haifa to building saboteurs again.
You probably meant Yair Lapid, a child of Z. Why are you and all of Kaplan on my Z.
The same process happened in Denmark. A losing battle: the contractors always defeat nature.
Unfortunately, money has power, they are not interested in landscape, nature, quality of life! In the end, money will win and they will build high-rise buildings and destroy nature. It hurts. The green Carmel will disappear and there will be only concrete and ugly buildings. In the future, we will remember Carmel and the famous song by Yoram Tahar Lev "The green mountain all year round." In the future, they will not understand the meaning of the song because the green mountain will disappear completely and tall, ugly buildings will grow. The animals will disappear, the cyclamen and the anemones will disappear. Crying for generations and generations.
I join the resistance.
I've already started saving and will soon have 150-200 thousand shekels, which is the payment that every family in Haifa will have to pay for keeping the neighborhood green.
I assume that the opponents have also collected such an amount and together we will have the 1.2 billion shekels needed for compensation. Not a task that the public in Haifa will not be able to meet.
Compensation for what? Who promised the owners of the plots construction? The greenery of the Carmel must be preserved. There are enough apartments in the city and many more potential new apartments in urban renewal projects.
A nightmare disaster when the Haifa Municipality will say that it was "forced" to move forward instead of demanding an exchange of land and announcing that there will be no further construction on the hills.
I have already collected 200,000 NIS in compensation for the landowners. Since no others from the public have joined me, the balance of 1,199,800,000 NIS will be financed by the municipality. Has the municipality already collected such a modest amount? Together we can prevent construction on the Golda slopes. Then we will move on to the other neighborhoods on the Carmel, in all of which it is appropriate to cancel the approved construction.