The Knesset will push legislation that will order the cancellation of old building plans that contradict primary legislation, a joint meeting of the Knesset Internal Affairs and Environment Committee and the Labor, Welfare and Health Committee decided yesterday. The MKs want to block a hotel project on the Kinneret shoreline north of Tiberias planned by Elbit Tourism, controlled by Mordechai Zisser.
The building plan calls for the reclamation of Kinneret lakebed, in order to push back the shoreline and enable construction of the hotel on the basis of an old plan, which was approved before passage of the Protection of the Coastal Environment Law (5764-2004), which restricts building within 50 meters of the Kinneret shoreline.
The media has reported recently that earthworks for the hotel have begun, including the dumping of soil into the Kinneret to extend the shoreline, and a detour in the road that circles the Kinneret in the area of the hotel.
Elbit Tourism launched the hotel plan after winning an Israel Land Administration (ILA) tender in 2007. An ILA official told the joint Knesset committee yesterday that the plan for the hotel was approved in 2000, but that there were no buyers in the subsequent marketing. Meanwhile, the Protection of the Coastal Environment Law was passed. Elbit Tourism was the only bidder in the tender three years ago.
A representative of the Israel Union for Environment Defense Green Alert Help Center director Adv. Keren Halperin-Museri told the committee, "We were told here that there was no interest by developers in the first round, and that the project was marketed again. When there is no interest by developers and the consideration of the good of state land, it is necessary to strike a balance and understand that the public good should be protected. Today, this project would not be approved under the Protection of the Coastal Environment Law. There are tools to correct errors, and we shouldn’t have to explain to our children why part of the shoreline was taken away."
Tiberias Mayor Zohar Oved said that the landfill work was intended to give public access to the free promenade. The hotel is an ecological hotel, and has been reduced to 138 units from 800 units. There is no reclamation here, only pushing back. We want to take the unkempt shoreline and turn it into something of the best. There's no process of real estate exploitation here, in which someone will profit from natural resource, but controlled tourism activity. No hotel has been built in Tiberias for 25 years."
Elbit Imaging Ltd. (Nasdaq: EMITF; TASE: EMIT) said in response, "The work underway at the site is being carried out by the municipality on the basis of an approved Urban Building Plan, which was approved by all the authorities, including environmental organizations. The land reclamation was, and is, a requirement by the State of Israel and not of Elbit Imaging, which is being used as the developer of the reclamation project for the creation of a lakefront and bathing promenade for the public. Naturally, there is no damage to the shoreline or the water; on the contrary, the beach will be clean, organized, and pollution free. The state required the developer to deposit bank guarantees for this task. Elbit Imaging does not build projects in Israel. This project in Tiberias was decided on by the company's management board after the Second Lebanon War in order to create 300 new jobs in the north. The hotel will be one of the most beautiful of its kind in the world, and we hope that we will win your support to build this project in a town where no new hotel has been built in 22 years."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on December 8, 2010
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