There will be no rent controlled apartments in Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv-Jaffa Mayor Ron Huldai told graduates of Tel Aviv University's Recanati School of Management today, when asked why he won't cap rent charged by "piggish landlords."
"I cannot cap rent," Huldai said. "There are ten reasons why I don’t buy a Mercedes. The first is that I can't afford it, and the other nine reasons are unimportant. Gentlemen, you decided that Israel would be a free market country. You decided that this is what you want. We voted for Bibi (Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu) and his colleagues, and the Knesset votes laws that Israeli will have a free market. In a free market country, it's impossible to ask me to be a regulator, because if you want me to be a regulator, you don’t want a free market.
"There is no way to affect housing prices in Tel Aviv so that they will be cheap there and expensive in Givatayim. Affordable housing is a national concern. Affordable housing is right only for big cities. The ability of a mayor to set housing prices is limited."
Huldai lambasted Minister of Transport Yisrael Katz over his public transport policy, saying, "Tel Aviv is a small place, and it takes ten minutes to go from Jaffa to Tel Aviv without congestion, but transport ministers are fixated on private cars, and when there is public transport, they do not enforce the special bus lanes, nor do they give us the authority to enforce them. If I were given the authority, I'd enforce, but I'm not given it, so I do not enforce."
Huldai added, "When I speak with the transport minister and tell him, 'If you don’t set up a metropolitan transportation authority, nothing will happen,' he laughs at me. I tell him that while he's talking, I've already built a subway from Petah Tikva to Rishon LeZion, beneath communities that no one knows about. This is a multibillion three-meter pipeline that no one knows about, because this pipeline carries sewage, not people."
As for the light railway, Huldai said, "It's been said that after ten years, Israel returned to the starting point, with a government company that has begun to build the light rail. In eight years, we'll have the right light rail line. It will be nice, and I hope it will happen."
Commenting on the closing of Sde Dov Airport, Huldai said, "This is not up to me. There is no reason to close Sde Dov. Cities of Tel Aviv's size around the world have small airports, and it's very important when you have 800,000 people travelling from Tel Aviv to Eilat. The reason for closing Sde Dov is not related to developing aviation in Israel, but due to the problem of land. The state owns the land, erred and signed an agreement with lawyers, and there seems to be no way back now. I told them a thousand times, let me keep Sde Dov, move the entire eastern section westward, and continue Ibn Gvirol Street northward, thereby vacating a lot of land in the Large Lot area, but there is no one to talk to. Regrettably, the level of planning in Israel has not improved."
"From a logical perspective, rather than political, Tel Aviv, Holon, and Bat Yam should be consolidated into a single municipality, but I cannot say this because everyone would say that I am an megalomaniac, but it's terribly important for the cities to be consolidated," said Huldai. "If it were to happen, I'd resign, but it won't happen."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on October 16, 2012
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