Globes, Eric Mirowski, 01.07.2020
Let's start from the end. The Housing Office does not appear to have a coherent housing plan; There does not seem to be any chance that what Minister Jacob Litzman is trying to promote will be approved; And it does not seem that in the current economic realities, the Treasury can budget housing plans, as if nothing is happening outside.
What was presented in the name of the Minister of Construction and Housing is not a housing plan , but a series of shortcomings, presented as part of a letter of complaint that Litzman wrote to the Minister of Finance that the Treasury does not count the Ministry of Housing officials on the way to building a budget. To prove that he had a plan, the Minister of Housing incorporated a series of clauses that should form such a plan.
About a third of the clauses contained in the letter may form a type of plan; Other clauses reiterate past clichés as "increase supply", while many clauses deal with the land management mechanisms by the RMA (Israel Land Authority).
Minister Litzman's "I believe" includes encouraging the purchase of apartments in the periphery by young couples, not to strengthen the periphery, but because housing prices are cheap. The encouragement will be provided by two means: discounted land to be sold to entrepreneurs, and grants and mortgage subsidies to be purchased by the buyers, including young couples buying second-hand apartments.
Where should the money come from? One can understand from the ranks that the Ministry of Housing is thinking of building a closed economic system that will transfer to the periphery subsidy funds received from land tenders in the central area, where prices will be full. Will it suffice? Maybe. Don't these days have better targets for the state to invest these funds? There is no doubt. Not only Litzman resents a letter about finance officials not thinking about a housing plan these days.
A key question is how aid will be determined. Is it like the old version of "Price to Buy", which favored young families with many children in a way that did not question who it was intended for? In this context, it is important to remember that in recent years the criteria for assistance with housing programs have spent quite a bit in the High Court. In any case, aid costs can easily reach hundreds of millions of shekels.
And how to determine what is a periphery? There is no doubt that Omar and Kfar Rosim, for example, are on the periphery. Are young couples who purchase cottages there eligible for a grant and subsidy on her mortgage? And what about Lod - a city in the heart of the demand area? Here, too, there does not seem to be anything cohesive.
Beyond that, the periphery is already flooded with dwellings and land prices for the resident, without a claim. What is there in the Litzman program, which should change this situation?
The answer - nothing. Even if it is tailor made for anxious young couples, it is a bad plan. It is intended to sell cheap apartments in cheap places to the means without publicity, without pouring any content in the periphery, no attractiveness, no improvement in the occupational wilderness, and culture, and if it is realized it will only ensure that peripheral poverty circles in these places are expanded. Is this what a young couple - secular or ultra-Orthodox - would like?