After a long wait – progress is being made towards the final approval of the regulations of Amendment 139 to the Planning and Construction Law – the alternative to TMA 38, which was also called the “Shaked Alternative”. to sign the regulations and thus complete the procedure, but since then things have been delayed, and in fact “stuck” in the office of the Minister of the Interior.
● TMA 38 ends in six months, and Shaked’s alternative is stuck in the Ministry of the Interior
● Despite the continued increase in interest rates – a significant decrease in delinquent mortgages
● Tel Aviv has a stock of apartments for two years. What will happen to the prices?
Yesterday (Tuesday) the regulations were published for public comments, on the way to their signature and final approval. They are open for public comments until April 18, i.e. the week after the second holiday of Passover, after which they are expected to be signed by the Minister of the Interior, Michael Malchiali.
The regulations, the drafting of which was led by the head of the regulation division in the planning director, Ruthie Shortz, refer to the chapter “rapid licensing” or “plan + permit” – a procedure promoted as part of the amendment and will allow, for the first time in Israel, to promote a plan and a permit at the same time, in one procedure. This is a change that could, potentially, bring about a big change in the planning and licensing process and shorten the way to realizing plans, but many in the market are not sure how this should actually happen. Globes brings you the main points of the regulations and the principles of the expected procedure.
Application for a permit – after a decision to deposit
The regulations published yesterday detail the entire process, starting from the first step that the plan submitter must take until the long-awaited moment when he receives the building permit. In general, the principles are similar to the principles existing in the licensing regulations established in 2016, with some important differences.
First, a request for information (also called an information file) must be submitted, following which all relevant data and details will be provided regarding the land on which the plan is planned. The validity of the information for submitting a program for rapid licensing is three years from the date of its delivery to the applicant. The next stage is the stage of submitting the plan to the local committee for planning and construction, based on the information received.
After it is decided to deposit the plan, it will be possible to submit the application for a building permit – and here is the first significant difference, since in the normal procedure an application can only be submitted after the completion of the planning procedure. The regulations also state, on the other hand, that the submission of the application for the permit will be a condition for depositing the plan, therefore strongly linking these two stages, one on the other.
The next step is to check with the city engineer that the permit application is formulated according to the conditions specified in the decision to deposit the plan – so that the two “channels”, both the plan and the permit application, will be compatible with each other. He will then submit his opinion to the local committee, which will be able to make a decision regarding the plan and the permit application.
How will the objections be examined?
An important and essential matter regarding the route for rapid licensing is the stage of objections to the plan and the permit. The criticism that has been heard around this route is that its weak point is this phase of the objections, because this is the phase that often leads to changes in the plan. Such changes will also require changes to the application for the permit that was advanced at the same time, and therefore may delay the entire procedure and make it difficult, according to these claims.
The regulations try to put order in the matter, and therefore state that the owner of a right to the land can submit an objection to the plan within 15 days from the day he received notification of the plan’s approval. Since the plan and the permit are compatible in this procedure, an objection to the permit is the same as an objection to the plan itself. The objections will be examined within the framework of the 45 “days of spatial control”, the period during which the city engineer is required to verify that all the conditions required by the local committee have been met by the applicant, and the licensing authority (which includes the chairman of the local committee and the city engineer only – Y.N.) must decide Whether to reject or approve the request, the local committee will discuss and decide on the matter within 45 days, and if it approves the plan – it will officially grant the permit five days after the plan goes into effect.
Longer validity than the normal route
The drafters of the regulations determined that the validity of the permit issued in the express licensing route is six years, compared to the validity of three years for a normal permit, and that the validity of a decision to approve a program for express licensing and the application for a permit submitted according to it will be three years – instead of two years in the normal route. However, if the plan is given effect but no permit is given by virtue of it at that time, the plan will expire. It was further determined that if an appeal was filed regarding the approval of the permit application, the period during which the appeal was pending will not be counted in the number of three years of validity. The rationale behind these determinations is the need to space out the schedules on a busier and more crowded route than the normal route.
By the way, the regulations allow a local committee to announce, within 60 days from the beginning of the regulations, to determine that in its planning area the licensing authority will discuss and decide on the request for a permit submitted under the fast-track licensing program – that is, the plan and the permit will not be promoted at the same time in the local committee. The regulations will enter into force two months from the date of their publication, and will apply to any request for information submitted from this date.