A revolutionary plan initiated by Jerusalem Mayor Rabbi Uri
Lupoliansky while he was still deputy mayor and chairman of
the City Planning and Construction Committee, promises to
provide over ten thousand new housing units. Slated for
approval in the near future, the plan will shorten the
procedures for obtaining permits to build extensions of
existing apartments and will provide a comprehensive plan for
the city's neighborhoods, particularly neighborhoods with
numerous large families.
While Rabbi Lupoliansky was serving as chairman of the City
Planning and Construction Committee he instructed the City
Engineering Department to prepare a city-wide housing
expansion program. The City Engineer and the District Planner
at the Interior Ministry spent several years laboring over
the various plans. Rabbi Lupoliansky's directives two years
ago have now come to fruition with an unprecedented plan soon
to come under review in the statutory committees. While the
plan was being prepared, concerted efforts were made by the
District Planning Bureau, the City of Jerusalem's Planning
Division and the framers of Jerusalem's new master plan.
In a detailed document City Engineer Uri Shitreet sent to
Mayor Lupoliansky, he describes the plan's point-by-point
goals, execution and the benefits it will bring to tens of
thousands of city residents.
The objective, writes Shitreet, is to create a tool for
planning and to establish conditions that will allow
expanding housing through a plan that will be approved in the
local committee. Until now every resident had to file a
request to build an extension, obtain a permit from the local
committee and then obtain another permit from the district
committee. The new program will collapse this procedure,
authorizing the local committee to approve housing expansion
plans independently.
This will shorten the planning procedure by several months
and clear guidelines for plan submitters will be formulated,
thereby reducing incidents of illegal construction. The City
Engineer writes that a considerable portion of the work
performed by the Planning Committee is devoted to discussing
specific plans whose common denominator is expanding housing
in Jerusalem. Among the reasons he lists for the large number
of requests is the serious housing crisis in many of the
city's neighborhoods and requests for ex post facto
building permits.
The proposed plan will allow expanded housing and extensions
to existing apartments in numerous neighborhoods, but will
not apply to areas designated for preservation or city
renewal, buildings more than six stories high or new
neighborhoods occupied for five years or less, in order to
allow the construction of new housing units in the city's
older neighborhoods.
The overall plan for housing expansion will allow for the
expansion of apartments up to 160 square meters (1,600 square
feet), in addition to the construction of a 9-sq.-meter
storeroom where feasible. Of course building beyond property
lines and reducing the number of parking spaces will not be
permitted, one-fourth of the building's grounds will be
reserved for landscaping, trees and fences will be left
intact and open public spaces and spaces designated for
public facilities will not be affected.
Following the plan's approval, the level of service city
residents receive in matters of housing improvements is
expected to rise drastically. The District Planning and
Construction Committee is also expected to be freed from
having to handle housing expansion and will be able to
address matters of planning principles that affect quality of
life in the city. Meanwhile the local planning and
construction committee will be given much greater
responsibility in matters of improving housing and the face
of the city in the coming years.
The new municipal plan would allow approval of housing
expansion plans via neighborhood and individual plans,
thereby facilitating the type of small-scale planning that
has led to demonstrable improvements in the quality of life
for Jerusalem residents. Meanwhile permit delays would be
vastly reduced by creating a uniform plan for the entire city
and eliminating the need to obtain the approval of two
committees.
In his capacity as Chairman of the Planning and Construction
Committee in the past two terms, Rabbi Lupoliansky worked on
various plans to improve housing conditions in Jerusalem. He
authorized the construction of thousands of new housing
units, especially in chareidi neighborhoods, along with
additions to thousands of apartments. Yet final approval was
granted long after submitting the request.
According to the new plan, prospective builders will only
have to file a permit request to the local committee,
currently headed by Deputy Mayor Rabbi Yehoshua Pollak. The
committee will also approve municipal plans for expanded
housing in entire neighborhoods, further shortening the
permit procedure, and within a relatively short time
additional rooms will be added to thousands of apartments
housing large families.
Rabbi Pollak said the plan marks the beginning of a major
change in Jerusalem's master plan. During Mayor Teddy
Kollek's time in office the master plan (in use to the
present day) placed tight limits on apartment expansion in
order to prevent the city's chareidi sector from growing.
Thus Kollek and other government figures backed the founding
of Beitar Illit, the chareidi part of Beit Shemesh, Tel Tzion
and other towns and neighborhoods on the periphery or outside
of Jerusalem. Apartment prices inside the city soared and
young couples were forced to seek housing elsewhere.
Mayor Lupoliansky told Yated Ne'eman that in addition
to this significant plan he intends to apply major pressure
on the government and the Prime Minister to make grants and
government loans available to purchasers of new apartments in
Jerusalem as in other preferred locations, particularly in
areas surrounding the city. "There is no reason in the world
why young couples can purchase less expensive apartments in
nearby towns than in Jerusalem," he said.
