Calcalist, Shlomit Tzur,  29.09.20

The battle for Ariel Sharon Park is heating up: The JNF and the local authorities bordering the park will this week present their proposals for the acquisition of the holdings in Park Ariel Sharon and for the management and development of the park to be their responsibility.

The Tel Aviv Municipality confirms that a joint proposal is being formulated for Tel Aviv and other local authorities, and the Ramat Gan Municipality has submitted a separate proposal. According to the Government Companies Authority, the development budget of the park according to the approved plans is estimated at NIS 250 million.

The park covers 8,500 dunams between Road 461 to the north, Road 4 to the east and Road 1 to the west, and is located in an area that does not belong to a municipality to any local authority. The park is managed by the Ariel Sharon Park Company, which was established in 2005 and is responsible for its operation and development.

In January 2018, a government decision was made to establish a committee whose members are representatives of the Budget Division of the Ministry of Finance, the Government Companies Authority, the Ministry of Environmental Protection and the Ministry of the Interior, which will examine the transfer of the park to the municipal territory Control of the park company.

The Companies Authority emphasized that in addition to the local authorities, the possibility of transferring responsibility for the park to the KKL-JNF is being considered. The proposals presented to the committee this week will detail the park's development strategy, type and scope of population Financing and the scope of the budget for its operation and maintenance.

In the past, the Tel Aviv Municipality has expressed its desire to transfer the management of the park to Lydia when the funding for its operation comes from the construction of 2,500 housing units on the outskirts. The municipality declined to comment at this stage on the intention to change the designation of parts of the park for construction, but confirmed that its representatives are meeting with representatives of the local authorities bordering the park area in order to submit a joint proposal for its management.

"The goal is to concentrate an effort of several cities to enable the development of a metropolitan park, which will be managed by a joint body to be established owned by the authorities that will be part of this process according to their relative size," the Tel Aviv municipality said. "At this stage, the Ramat Gan municipality has chosen to submit its own proposal. In the coming days, together with other authorities, we will submit the joint proposal to the state authorities."

The Ramat Gan Municipality has submitted its proposal to accept responsibility for the management of the park, while integrating it into a metropolitan sequence that will include the national park in the city of Hess.Paris. In Ramat Gan, they insist that no construction be carried out on the park's areas, in order to leave it as an open public area, with the state having to participate in financing its development. As part of its proposal, the Ramat Gan municipality states that it will take part in the development investments of hundreds of millions of shekels, which will be deployed annually throughout the decade.

The JNF has also approved that it will present its proposal for the management of the park to the committee.