Calcalist, Dov Cohen, 23.04.2020

Earlier this week, the Planning Administration announced that in light of the Corona crisis, the promotion of the strategic housing plan for 2040 was halted. The practical implication is to sharply curb growth in the number of planned housing units - while the IDF was to approve plans to build some 80,000 housing units by the end of the year, it would approve plans for only 40,000 housing units. That the shortage of new housing units in the market will increase significantly in the coming years.

The slowdown of the commission's work, as well as other worrying data about the situation in the planning institutions, were revealed in the letter from the Planning Director General, Dalit Silber, to the Finance Ministry's Director General, Shai Babad, and Civil Service Commissioner Daniel Hershkowitz. In March, the Planning Administration is working on a limited program of only 30% of the organization's manpower, which means an inability to meet the goals set in the strategic plan - the construction of 1.5 million new housing units by 2040 (out of 2.6 million planned housing units).

In her letter, Silber noted that among the significant plans for their advancement will be damaged - the Eshkol complex in Sde Dov in northern Tel Aviv (4,844 housing units); Lod-North (5,600 housing units); Herzliya Northern Complex (10,000 housing units); As well as various urban regeneration programs, including the Giant Plan at the Sperber complex in Bat Yam (1,120 housing units) and Olga Hill (1,148 housing units).

The planning inventory of the Israeli housing market is also expected to be damaged in part due to the drastic decline in the output of construction sites, which are currently having difficulty working in full format, as well as due to delay in granting building permits and stopping tendering for land marketing of thousands of housing units. "The advancement of these issues and many others," Silber wrote, "was recently hit by the outbreak of the Corona crisis. Under these circumstances, we will not be able to meet the key challenges we face ...".

Appraiser Yaron Spector. "Changing priorities and redirecting the distribution of government funds" Photo: Yishai Ronen

Spector points the finger mainly at one planning institution: "Contrary to what has been said, there are still unused land for construction. I hear about many residential projects, but 'the provincial commission has not yet granted them permits.' In other words, the state itself is preventing construction and thus firing If there is more construction prices fall, demand will increase and economic activity will grow.

"If you just want more committees in the big districts or alternatively you can increase the staffing of those committees. Today, with every flood of requests for construction, 20 or 30 people are faced by a district committee. Why not add a few dozen district planners? Probably related to budgetary considerations and conservative views of government ministries, such as the Home Office, for example, the challenge for the new government will be to change those concepts. ".