Calcalist, Dror Marmor, 27.05.2020
Kiryat Gat is called upon to cancel the development of thousands of apartments for the benefit of their construction outside the city, in the background of the expansionist struggle it is facing with the southern capital of Beer Sheva - according to letters and protocols reached by Calcalist.
Southern District Planner in the District Planning and Building Committee Tomer Gutholf urged the Kiryat Gat Municipality to "agree" to the roof agreement it signed with the Treasury in August 2018, aimed primarily at financing the development of 5,000 apartments in the north of the city. This was revealed in a letter this week sent by Yossi Russo, a consultant to the mayor of Kiryat Gat and a member of the city's roof agreements administration, to the CEO of the Planning Administration, Dalit Silver.
At the same time, protocols of planning committees over the past six months regarding the future of Kiryat Gat indicate that the struggle for the development of the city, which has 60,000 residents and holds land reserves for hundreds of thousands more, is mainly centered around who will be the strong metropolis of the south of the country.
Guthalf's recommendation is to "copy the conditions to Moshav Uza", which is west of the city. In the background, Interior Minister Aryeh Deri, who has now taken over the planning administration, has already declared his desire to establish a new ultra-Orthodox city in Moshav Uza . Gothenburg also recommended Rousseau to ask transport minister Miri Regev, "a native of Kiryat Gat herself," to copy the planned train line south, instead of the second station to the north of the city. Russo wrote to Silver that since the Second Roof Agreement was agreed, "the Southern District Planning Bureau has systematically thwarted any possibility of its implementation." Among other things, he complains about stopping investment in infrastructure in the Old City for half a billion shekels, stopping construction of public and educational institutions and "total" halting urban renewal programs.
The awl went out of the bag
"The awning is already out of the sack. Brish waves of state say that the development of Kiryat Gat must not be approved because it endangers Be'er Sheva, the capital of the Negev," says Mayor Aviram Dahari, and as Russo wrote to Silver this week, the intention is clear and transparent - to create a quarrel and debate between mayors In the Southern District, create a deliberate confrontation and misrepresent it as if Kiryat Gat is developing at the expense of Be'er Sheva.
Kiryat Gat will grow
On the promotion of Uzza, he says: “The intention is only to stick the roof agreement, so that no apartments or commercial or industrial establishments will compete here in Be'er Sheva. Sits a clerk, however talented, and disrupts plans for the development of Kiryat Gat. Once the guise was a concern for the city, today it is only a concern for Beer Sheva.
Kiryat Gat's development trends currently include three main areas: 5,000 apartments north of the city; 8,000 apartments south of the city, on the territory of Moshav Uza; 9,532 apartments west of the city, also on the Moshav of Uza. On the expansion in Gaza, Dhari says: "In my estimation, in the end, it will really be a separate city. Another mistake, but I go with the Minister of the Interior and what is good for him. "
Right: Aviram Dahari, Mayor of Kiryat Gat, and Rubik Danilovich, Mayor of Beer Sheva. Territorial battle.Photos: Nimrod Glickman, Israel Joseph
Meanwhile, in Kiryat Gat, the Southern District in the Planning Administration maintains that every development of the city stops ("the residents want to buy apartments, and I don't have one apartment to give them"), mainly because of the pressure exerted by Beer Sheva.
Speaking at a district committee meeting in March, Beer Sheva Local Committee Chairman Tal El Al said: "When talking about 110,000 apartments in Kiryat Gat, a potential 400,000 residents, this is already a significant change in pendulum. It is impossible to approve plans for 280,000 residents of the Be'er Sheva metropolis, and in the same breath allow Kiryat Gat to grow to 400,000. You have to say 'no' and that's fine. Kiryat Gat already has 18,000 approved apartments for construction today, that's 80,000 residents. It's not like we strangled the city. "
David Lefler, chairman of the Southern District Committee, said explicitly: "If, in theory, Kiryat Gat grows another 100,000 apartments, it will knock Beer Sheva. You can't argue about that at all."
“The train stops and stops”
Speaking at the end of 2019 at the National Council for Planning and Building, Beer Sheva Mayor Rubik Danilovich emphasized the importance of maintaining Beer Sheva as an anchor in the southern metropolis: Do you know where the highest negative immigration today from Be'er Sheva? Once it was to Tel Aviv, today it is to Ofakim. You know why? Because the smart legislator found a way to strengthen all localities near Be'er Sheva by tax benefits. From the price in Beersheba, it also happens in transport. After all, what is the essence of a heavy train? Traveling from metropolitan to metropolitan in the shortest time. But what did the smart people do? They created a station for every small town. Now the train instead of traveling and traveling, In Kiryat Gat, but guys, let's calm down, that will be proportionate. "
According to Dahari, "Beersheba is unlikely to reach the planning committees to decide what we will build. Her mayor cannot accept the fact that we are not competing with him because we are Israel's new center."
The Planning Administration said: "The District Planning and Building South is advancing many plans in Kiryat Gat, according to which there are approximately 13,000 approved apartments that have not yet been realized. The issue of the city's expansion to the north or south has already been discussed by the National Planning and Building Council, which stipulated that further discussion should be held in the District Committee. The data for decision making. "