The new and old Romema and Givat Oranim are classic "sleeping neighborhoods". They have almost nothing but residential houses, but they are located very close to the Horev center and the commercial center in the estate and the Grand Canyon, so no resident is harmed by living in a neighborhood where there is almost nothing.
On the slopes of the new Romema neighborhood there is a large gas station and a Vionio restaurant. For decades, the Italian restaurant Popolo was located in the gas station, which closed about two years ago. Next to the gas station there is also a car tram, a car wash and a yellow store, which is open 24/07.
Old Romema
(north of Pika Road)
Established in the 20s of the last century. The neighborhood is bordered by Shimshon Wardia Street on one side and Pika Street on the other. The neighborhood has many entrances and exits and there are no traffic jams. The only difficulty is around the sports hall. We will detail this later in the article.
One of the advantages of the neighborhood is that the neighborhood itself is quiet and surrounded by greenery, but a few hundred meters away are the Grand and the Horev center.
Marom Hotel is also located in the neighborhood.
The old Romema in Haifa - map
The new Romema
(south of Pika Road)
The new Romema was built later, in the late 60s. There are many high-rise buildings in the neighborhood (mainly on the Flower Street) and the apartment prices and property taxes are relatively not high. The neighborhood offers a variety of services such as a post office, a health fund, a supermarket, a milk drop, a bank branch and a laundromat. A large part of the population in the neighborhood are new immigrants and the elderly.
The neighborhood has a lot of exits, which helped the residents a lot in the fire a year ago, when the neighborhood burned in several locations.
The new Romema in Haifa - map
Givat Oranim
Built in the late 80s and early 90s of the last century, on a pine grove next to the new elevation. The neighborhood has 3 streets and the construction is relatively low. The Givat Oranim neighborhood was very badly damaged by the fire last year and especially Shazer Street, where there are quite a few units that have not yet been repopulated.
In the neighborhood there is a camp of the immigrant camps and a branch of the General Health Insurance Fund.
Real Estate
While in the new Romema neighborhood you can buy a 3-room apartment on Oren and Farahim streets for less than 2 million NIS, in the Givat Oranim neighborhood, apartment prices sometimes reach 3-3 million NIS (depending on the area of the apartment and the number of stairs up to the apartment door). In the old Romema neighborhood, a 1,198,000-room apartment costs NIS 4 and a 1,335,000-room apartment costs NIS XNUMX according to the Madeleine Index.
Besides second-hand apartments, in the old Romma there have been several projects of TAMA and new construction (the green Romma) in recent years. The prices of the new apartments in the neighborhood are very high, and reach 2.5 million NIS for a 5-room apartment.
Education
The schools are "Ben Gurion" in the old Romme and the "Romme" school in the new Romme. The number of students at Romma School (which was renamed about two years ago to Romma Music School) has grown greatly in recent years, and most of the children living in the neighborhood attend the school. Both schools show good data in the Mitzvah tests, but the Ben Gurion school in the old Rommah shows higher scores.
In the old Romema there is also a mansion branch of the Reali school.
Both neighborhoods have municipal gardens and private gardens. In the new Romma there is a daycare center for Naamat, adjacent to the municipal kindergarten and the school.
In both neighborhoods there are many playgrounds and groves, where the children play. One of the playgrounds in the new Romme was converted into a dog park after it had been empty for years, due to improper facilities that were there before.
The students from the neighborhood go to the six-year urban school H (the old Romma) and the Alliance school (the new Romma).
Public Transport
Public transportation in both neighborhoods is excellent. You can easily reach any neighborhood in the city by bus. There is also convenient public transportation to the Technion and the university.
Challenges
As in the other neighborhoods in the city, also in the new and old Romma, the residents apparently suffer from being close to the bay area and the polluting factories. This is an urban struggle, which for now is partially successful.
One of the problems is a parking problem. Both in the new and in the old Romema, in some streets it is very difficult for tenants to find parking near the houses. On Farahim Street, for example, there is a row of high-rise buildings and very little parking on the street. The number of parking lots has not changed in the last 40 years, although the number of vehicles has increased dramatically.
The parking shortage around the sports hall in Romma:
The sports hall was established in 1976 and renovated during 2011. During the renovation, the number of chairs was doubled from 2,500 to 5,000. The number of vehicles arriving at the games has also increased significantly, but no parking spaces have been added, which causes a great parking crisis when there is a basketball game or a concert at the venue. The police usually allow entry only to residents of the neighborhood during performances. One of the complaints raised by the residents of the neighborhood, during the renovation, is the lack of comprehensive planning and the lack of providing a parking solution for those coming to the games. In response, the municipality then announced that it would operate an array of shuttles from nearby parking lots.
Since then the problem has not been solved and the plight of the residents has worsened and remains unanswered.
The wave of fires November 24, 2016
Givat Oranim was badly damaged by the fire in Haifa. The new Romema neighborhood was also damaged and, among other things, the Romema school on Oren Street was very partially burned. In Romema itself, vehicles were damaged, which were standing next to houses, trees and houses on Oren Street.
The biggest hit was on Givat Oranim and especially on Shazer Street. To this day, there are units that have not been repopulated, even though a year has passed since the fire.
The fire greatly affected life in the neighborhood. The need to restore the houses created a lot of conflicts between neighbors (and especially between neighbors whose house was damaged and wanted to renovate it as quickly as possible, and neighbors whose house was not damaged and piled difficulties on those whose house was damaged).
The fact that those who live in Givat Oranim still live next to pine trees, which, as could be seen in November of last year, easily catch fire, does not add to the sense of security of the owners of the housing cooperatives in the neighborhood, who know that the neighborhood can easily burn again. At the same time, it is also important to note that the residents whose homes were damaged received an escort Next to the municipal employees, who did everything possible to make it easier for those whose homes burned down. The Haifa municipality accompanied the residents during the weeks and months of dealing with the damage to the homes after the fire.
The municipality invested a great deal of effort in order to rehabilitate the neighborhoods after the fire. A very large amount of trees were planted in both neighborhoods and a playground that was damaged at the entrance to the new Romema neighborhood is being restored. The municipality knew how to raise donations in order to rehabilitate and return the green to the eyes of the residents without harming the municipal budget too badly.
[] project Haifa neighborhoods - Michal Yaron presents the unique characteristics of each neighborhood in the city