Calcalist, Amitay Gazit, 21.05.2020

FYI: For the past three years since the government approved the "Strategic Housing Plan", a cumulative 15,000 dwellings have been created between the number of apartments started in Central, Jerusalem and Northern districts and housing needs that formed the basis of the plan that the government decided in March 2017. This was when the outgoing government waved All the time in the plans and the number of construction starts.

The Strategic Plan for Housing 2040 was created on the basis of an analysis of housing needs in each district conducted by the National Economic Council. It is also intended to mark a general target for the amount of construction required by 2040 and also to mark a target for each district, in accordance with the deployment plans and population dispersal.

In Central District, for example, 13,750 apartments had to be built each year, but in fact, about 12,000 apartments were being built each year, and in the aggregate a shortage of nearly 4,000 apartments was created in the most desirable area in the country. To meet the needs of housing in the Jerusalem District, it is determined that 5,750 apartments are to be built each year. Since the plan was approved, 17,000 apartments had to be built, but in fact less than 11,000 apartments had been built. In the Northern District, 9,000 apartments had to be built each year. In fact, some 7,000 apartments were built and a total of 5,400 apartments were created in three years. In the Southern District the gap between needs and construction starts is negligible, 900 apartments.

Surprise: No infrastructure

On the other hand, in the Tel Aviv district, the situation is very good compared to the destinations. In the district, building permits were issued for 8,700 apartments more than the target set by the National Economic Council, and a total of 32,029 apartments began to be built there.

The strategic plan aims to prevent building barriers and to plan decades ahead. But in fact there is no plan of action to realize the goals derived from the plan.

In practice, since the government's decision was adopted by 2040 to build 1.5 million apartments, a series of tasks derived from it have simply been forgotten. First and foremost, there is no correlation factor that ensures that government ministries implement their work plans for projects derived from government housing goals. What is also estimated is that the expected split of the housing headquarters from the Treasury into two government ministries, the Interior and Construction and Housing, will only exacerbate the difficulty of coordinating actions between the parties in the government who are responsible for housing.

The only step taken to implement the strategic plan is a mapping conducted by the Planning Administration of planning needs in the areas of housing, transport, infrastructure, open spaces and employment. However, the main conclusion is that there is no synchronization or certainty that these infrastructures will be ready in time, and when the state seeks to implement the residential construction plans, it will discover (as usual, and as it has become clear since approval of the plan) that roads, sewage infrastructure or classrooms are lacking.

The planning institutions are aware of the problem, and they warned of this at a meeting of the National Planning and Building Council that discussed the strategic housing plan last Tuesday. At the meeting, the fruits of the mapping work of the various provinces were presented, and the presentation of the Southern District was signed as follows: "The National Council should flood the Government with the difficulties in advancing the means necessary to assure it." The Northern District presentation reads: "There is no meaning to long-term strategic vision without full synchronization among all the factors.

The provincial committee calls on the National Council to guide all planning bodies, including the PLO (National Infrastructure Committee), the PLO (the Government Commission for the Advancement of Large Residential Programs), and the National Council itself, as well as the state planning bodies such as the Israel Land Authority and the Ministry Construction and Housing, act on the basis of the strategic plan. "

A government official said: "If you plan to market land construction companies in a particular neighborhood already this year, that means that by 2023 it will be populated. It also means you can know in advance how many children will be there, the Ministry of Welfare knows how much care is needed, and the Ministry of Health knows how to set up health funds. The problem is nobody tells them. "

The program directs the Treasury to "synchronize between the ministries and relevant entities the execution and budgetary processes, including funding and timing of infrastructure, public services, incentives for urban renewal, employment areas". In other words, the Treasury is supposed to make sure that the Department of Education will put funding into its work program to build enough classrooms before students come; That the Ministry of Transport establish the interchange needed for a new neighborhood; And that there is a budget for building or expanding a wastewater treatment plant.

No regeneration plans

Another problem is the mayors' opposition to absorbing thousands of new families because the property taxes paid by households do not cover the services they consume. Therefore, the plan directed the housing headquarters, the Ministry of Finance and the Interior Ministry to formulate a plan to encourage local authorities to initiate building plans. Such a plan has never been formulated either.

At the same time, the strategic plan for housing has identified that the Central and Tel Aviv districts have a shortage of vacant land for construction, and about half of the new apartments planned for them will be in the process of urban renewal. Against this backdrop, in March 2017, the government decided to impose an urban renewal authority, housing headquarters and a budget department in the Ministry of Finance "to prepare within 10 months an urban renewal action plan that will define the tools, actions and measures required to meet the urban renewal goals." So far no such program is available. At the end of 2017, the Urban Renewal Authority was established, and in July 2018 it was fully staffed. In November 2018, an urban renewal plan was presented to then-Minister of Construction Yoav Galant. In January 2019, Galant left office, and nothing has happened in the area of ​​urban renewal since then. However, the Authority and the Planning Administration are promoting the addition of hundreds of thousands of apartments along the metro and light rail lines.

The shift of demand from the center to the rest of the country is also stuck. The National Economic Council identified in 2017 that in these areas land reserves are often accessible to public transport and roads and therefore marked them as a way of providing demand for apartments in the center. But in order for the public to reside there, the government must produce proper infrastructure and sources of employment in these cities.

So far nothing has been done, land marketing tenders fail because of construction companies' lack of interest, and a slide presented to the National Council last week indicates the situation today: "In the absence of infrastructure we have supply and no demand. "B creates a strong desire to remain part of the Tel Aviv metropolitan area. Demand for the central region remains in the central region and is expanding. The Beersheba metropolitan area is shrinking. "