About 1,000 building permit applications pursuant to TMA 38 are currently in approval procedures in 7 cities in the areas surrounding future metro stations. This figure emerges from a sample test carried out by the metro team of the Planning Administration ahead of today’s discussion of the plan that defines the planning policy around the metro. That is On average, more than 140 buildings in each of these cities are waiting for the TMA 38 project, that’s a lot of tenants, entrepreneurs and lawyers knocking on the offices of these municipalities. These projects allow (perhaps) to strengthen a building, upgrade the existing apartments, and add some new apartments. But because these plans apply to a single lot, they do not allow examining the environment and offering design solutions to problems important to the city’s residents who are not the building’s residents, for example adapting the area to pedestrians, public buildings, gardens, employment, trade and recreation areas.
The discussion dealt precisely with a plan that provides an answer to these issues – TMA 70 – which seeks to define what the space around the metro stations will look like in the future. This plan seeks to create an urban environment biased toward public transportation in general and of course one that uses the metro. A central principle of the plan is intensive construction around the stations, much more Than TMA 38 allows: many more floors and apartments, but also offices, commercial areas, and wide and shaded sidewalks. All these are intended to encourage as many people as possible to abandon the private car and switch to public transport.
The intensification of construction around the metro stations is also essential to finance this huge project because of taxation that will be imposed on land owners who will benefit from a considerable improvement thanks to the plan. This taxation is a source of financing about 50% of the project. All of this will be very difficult to achieve if hundreds of requests for TMA 38 flow in at the same time. Therefore, the committee that discussed the plan recommended to the National Council to examine the imposition of restrictions on TMA 38. It has not yet been decided what the nature of the restrictions will be and who will be included in them – for example, it is likely that projects that received The permit or on the verge of the permit will be able to continue, compared to projects at the beginning of the road that will probably be asked to calculate a new route.
The contractors created an uproar over this, in their letter to the chairman of the National Council they warned against the freezing of construction, and against a disaster that would result from the collapse of the buildings that were not reinforced.
In the world of planning, it is common to say that everyone recognizes the importance of infrastructure projects, but no one wants them in their backyard. The backyard is a metaphor for private interests and in the case of the contractors TMA 38 is their backyard. It may hurt some of them if they stop the plan, but hopefully in return we will get better and less congested cities.
In recent years, the validity of TMA 38 has expired and been extended several times. Everyone agrees that this plan is flawed, but in the absence of a government that manages to produce another good and proven alternative, they continue to act on it. Therefore, one thing we can agree with the contractors is the instability of the government, and the inability to accept decisions and promote reforms leads to their fear of giving up the existing one even if it is not perfect. It is better to add apartments in a bad way than not to build at all.
This is exactly where the politicians who claim to lead us should step in. This is where they need to provide certainty and security and show that there are issues that are beyond any political controversy. But the memory of the overthrown Metro Law is still fresh, and also the law promoted by the Minister of the Interior to replace TMA 38 was passed at the last moment before the dissolution of the Knesset and after quite a few heart palpitations.