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Two weeks before the deadline for the Ministry of Transportation to notify Natsva of the termination of the contract between them and the evacuation of transportation activity from the Tel Aviv Central Station complex, the municipality blew up the agreement to move the station to an alternative area, because it claims there is an urban nature site. Meaning: The contract with Natsva will be automatically renewed for another five years, and activity at the station will continue until 2028.
Last night, residents of the Neve Sha’anan and Shapira neighborhoods, along with social activists, held a demonstration in front of the city hall in protest of the explosion of the agreement. “Since Merav Michaeli entered the Ministry of Transportation, things started to move, suddenly NIS 60 million was found that the army agreed to put on the evacuation,” says Gadi Tunes, one of the leaders in the struggle at Central Station, who took part in the demonstration. The first problem that arose was used by Huldai to create a crisis that would eliminate the evacuation. ”
The site, which the municipality calls “urban nature”, is actually an artificial winter pool hewn in kurkar rock near the Panorama complex, where the main terminal is supposed to be built to temporarily replace the central station. The site was not discovered recently, it has appeared in the municipality’s protocols since 2012 and also in the environmental survey of the Kiryat Shalom neighborhood, which appears on the site of the Tel Aviv Municipality.
In an article published in the hottest spot about the neighborhood residents’ struggle against the construction of the terminal in their area, the municipality said that:
“The initiative to emphasize the importance of the ‘urban nature site’, as far as we see, comes from the municipality and we have no explanations for this source of pressure,” says Yael Dori, head of planning at Adam, Teva VeDin. There are no endemic species, no rare species or special habitat, or anything that really requires complete protection of the place. And if we consider the preservation of the artificial pool in front of the health of tens of thousands of people who live under the air pollution next to the existing central station, there does not seem to be anything to compare. “
Tunes said that officials from the Department of Environmental Protection hold a similar opinion, and that in a meeting with them this week on the issue, they agreed that residents’ health is better than the winter pool.
The move must be stopped
In all the discussions that took place in the municipality before the agreement was approved, there was unanimity about the chosen alternative compound. “We believe that there is a vital, right and absolutely desirable move here – to remove the bus activity from the Central Station,” said City Director Menachem Leiba, asking the Ministry of Transportation to expedite the planning process. . To succeed, you have to start as soon as possible. ‘
The municipal planning department also expressed a similar position – “Mr. Ben Zvi (main urban center in the Beit Panorama complex – DZ) is the preferred alternative for establishing a large-scale transportation center,” said Orly Erel, deputy city engineer and head of the planning department. “We all want to see the two Panorama terminals and the fighters as temporary terminals, not beyond 15 years. That is, we are all simultaneously committed to promoting the terminal and the Ben Zvi Air Force.”
Last month, city officials held a public participation meeting with neighborhood residents, where they detailed to residents what was planned at the Panorama terminal. According to the residents, the coalition’s chairman and deputy mayor, Gal Sharabi, enthusiastically promised that “the move will be good for the residents and good for the neighborhoods, which will be connected to the rest of the city, and will increase economic activity in the neighborhood.”
Meanwhile, the residents of the Kiryat Shalom and Neve Ofer neighborhoods are opposed to moving the terminal to their area. In recent weeks, they have been concentrating on the fight against the expected air pollution from the large bus traffic. This is despite the fact that in a meeting held with representatives of the municipality, it was argued there that because the terminal will be open, the level of air pollution in the neighborhood is not expected to increase significantly.
“Panorama House is not a good place for a terminal,” says Simcha Tallyevsky, one of the leaders of the Neve Ofer residents’ struggle. “No one will want to go down there and it will just become a huge and polluting parking lot. For us, as long as no body has proposed an orderly plan and there are no surveys, no planning company and no clarification of the environmental implications for the terminal plan – the move must stop.”
According to Yael Dori, in the programs promoted by the National Infrastructure Committee, there are actually clear provisions for examining environmental consequences. “The planning bodies will not allow the transfer of a hazard from one place to another,” she clarifies. “In addition, the association is working with the Ministry of Environmental Protection to declare the Central Station and its surroundings as an area affected by air pollution, in accordance with the ‘Clean Air’ Act which requires the Minister of Environmental Protection to restrict activity in areas where unusual air pollution is measured regularly.”
According to activists, the explosion of the agreement by the municipality stems from the pressure exerted by residents of the Neve Ofer and Kiryat Shalom neighborhoods on Huldai, who recently announced that he would run for another term. According to them, this is political pressure on Huldai himself and other elements in the coalition, including a Shas representative and the person in charge of construction and infrastructure, Zevulun Elhanan, whose faction has a strong electoral base in these neighborhoods. Meanwhile, the municipality has hired security guards to protect him because they say demonstrations against him have taken on a threatening nature and the Israeli police have issued restrictions on holding demonstrations in front of his home.
Sources close to the matter said that there are no complex discussions about alternatives in the municipality and no changes can be made once the decision has been made. According to them, shouts and emotional conversations on planning or administrative issues by Huldai are described as a matter of routine.
Tomorrow, the parents’ committee of the Shapira neighborhood will sit down tomorrow in the schools in the neighborhood, which are within the range of the unusual pollution. “Parents for Climate” announced that they would suspend studies in other schools in Tel Aviv as solidarity with students in the south of the city.
“The prevailing professional school today is a more efficient network of terminals than a central station,” says Tunes. “What is happening now is a direct continuation of the backyard policy, in which all hazards are drained into one area that is absorbed, so that the rest of the areas can live well. When a rat prefers a pit in the ground over residents’ lives and children’s health, To do the right thing and to be remembered as the one who cleared the biggest hazard in the history of the city or to be remembered as the one who ended his tenure as a detached person who abandons his residents to their fate. ”
Meanwhile, it seems that the Tel Aviv-Yafo municipality is mainly to blame for the Ministry of Transportation. The municipality responded: “The date of evacuation of the transportation terminal from the new central station is set by the Ministry of Transportation. The plan is not feasible, so a final outline has not yet been formulated.
It is a pity that the Ministry of Transport is busy with accusations instead of finding an effective and practical solution. As is well known, each lot has different characteristics and complexities, according to which it must be planned. The existence of an urban nature site in the area of the Panorama Terminal has been known since 2012, when an urban nature survey was conducted. The municipality offered this lot with additional alternatives to the Ministry of Transportation, and from now on the ministry’s role is to plan according to the conditions of the lot – which was not done in practice. The residents of the city will continue to be at the forefront of our minds.
Regarding the closure order – the Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality acted to issue a closure order for the new central station, which was supposed to take effect on December 5. However, following a tour of the building that revealed that most of the fire safety requirements had been met and following a request from the management company, and in accordance with the position of the Fire Authority and the municipality, the court ordered a further 30-day delay in enforcing the closure order. As for the maintenance of the building – the new central station building is not owned by the municipality, but privately owned, so the maintenance of the building is the responsibility of the property owners. However, upon receipt of the complaints, inspectors were sent to the scene, in order to examine the complaints and the situation on the ground and accordingly the property owner will be enforced and charged to deal with the hazards. In addition, although the municipality is limited in its ability to operate on the spot, since these are businesses operating in the city area, the municipality will contact the station management if necessary to settle the issues raised with the business owners. It should be noted that for businesses that approached us individually, the municipality assisted to the best of its limited ability. For example, the municipality turned to the station’s management in order for it to regulate access for synagogue visitors, since the access road itself is located in a public area. “