Calcalist, Shlomit Tzur, 03.12.20
The Northern District Planning and Building Commission has adopted the strategic policy document for Tiberias, according to which the number of apartments in it will increase from 17,000 to 40,000 through urban renewal, and the number of residents will triple to 128,000 in the next two decades. The document was prepared by architect Danny Lazar with the staff of the District Planning Bureau of the Planning Administration, in collaboration with representatives of Tiberias and government ministries.
The plan includes the development and renewal of the historic city; And turning the upper level of the city into an entrance gate around the plan to build a train station that will connect Tiberias to Haifa and the center of the country; And the transfer of industrial uses of the "Egoz" industrial area to the "Kedmat Hagalil" industrial area, which is located west of the city, and the designation of the area that is vacated for mixed uses of employment and trade. The Planning Administration hopes that since the city is currently under the management of a convened committee of the Ministry of the Interior, it will be simpler to lead the dramatic moves to strengthen Tiberias.
Jonathan Cohen-Litant, district planner: "Unlike Beit She'an and Afula, where they placed the train station in the wrong place in isolation from the city, we will make sure that the lesson is learned in Tiberias. The heavy train will be in Upper Tiberias because it cannot get off, but a light rail will be able to serve the city center. A train is a very significant event for the city.
Uri Ilan, Chairman of the District Committee: "Tiberias is a national and international asset that deserves to be the focus of a national effort to create a first-rate change. I could not understand how in the Northern District, where the largest number of poverty-stricken and inhabited areas are hundreds of thousands of people without earthquake protection and without security protection, did not reach the line of urban renewal. The common answer we get that it is ‘uneconomical’ infuriates me over and over again. The state's intervention is not large sums, and the return will not be invaluable. "The document shows that in order to fill the economic gaps for urban renewal in the old neighborhoods of Tiberias, the state must invest about NIS 800 million.
Cohen Litant: “The plan stops all the planning of the state to build in open agricultural areas, because such construction will weaken the city. Until a few years ago, there was no evacuation-construction plan in the Northern District, today there are 20 plans. The question is not how many new apartments are approved in place of each old apartment, but how much free space there is in the same complex. "