Is the saga of Tel Aviv’s Ha’argazim neighborhood about to come to an end? Almost thirty years after it began, letters are now being sent to residents of the neighborhood requesting them to sign agreements to vacate their homes. In return, most of them will receive apartments in the project due to be built on the site. Some residents have received vacate orders.
The Ha’argazim neighborhood is an area of 163 dunams (41 acres) registered as belonging to the Israel Land Authority, located in south Tel Aviv between the Ezra neighborhood, Darom Park, and the Hatikva neighborhood. The site was the location of the Arab village of Salameh. After the War of Independence, Jews settled in the houses, some of them with the encouragement of the Jewish Agency. Others built new houses there. The state, however, never recognized the property rights of the first settlers on the site or of those who came after them, but nor did it rush to remove them.
The result is that land was grabbed on the site by private individuals who built houses with gardens and small businesses. The state and the municipality never constructed infrastructure on the site, which looks like a transit camp.
In the 1990s, the Israel Land Authority initiated planning and regularization for the neighborhood, including the removal of squatters. In 1996, in advance of land tenders for the site by the Israel Land Authority, a plan for the area was approved. The Israel Land Authority also carried out a survey that found that there were 167 homes in the area. The residents claimed at the time that the survey was in error, and had missed dozens of families living in the neighborhood.
The land tenders took place, but were cancelled because of the lawsuits that began to pile up concerning the neighborhood. In the end, a tender was held in 1998 that was won by Friedman-Khakshouri and Aviyod Properties. They were later joined by Elad Israel Residences (now Dunietz-Elad Group). The winners were tasked with evacuating the residents, in accordance with a plan drawn up by the Israel Land Authority.
Under that plan, only someone who had lived in the neighborhood for ten years or more would receive a 110 square meter apartment, compensation of $50,000 per family, and monthly rent of $500 per person for up to three years. That plan served as the basis for everything that happened afterwards, but almost 30 years later it can be understood that it did little to expedite matters.
Twenty years ago, Friedman-Khakshouri succeeded in coming to an arrangement with some of the residents in the southern part of the neighborhood, and built a 17-floor tower containing 66 apartments, occupied by those with rights under the tender terms. Following the sale of part of the project to Dunietz-Elad (then Elad Residences, owned by Yitzhak Tshuva), the latter built 17-floor buildings on the remaining area in the south of the neighborhood, in a project called Park Tel Aviv. Some thirty more residents were housed in this project.
Dunietz-Elad CEO Ronen Jaffa told "Globes" that the project built in the southern part of the neighborhood "pulled the Ha’argazim neighborhood wagon out of the mire." The main problem, however, is in the larger, northern part of the neighborhood (127 dunams), where most of the residents live. The legal proceedings and the social protests that accompanied the evacuation measures continued to delay realization of the plan, and only in the second half of the previous decade did progress start to be made.
The Tel Aviv Municipality initiated a plan in the northern part of the neighborhood that was approved last year. It consists of seven towers of 22-32 floors each containing 1,870 apartments, 174 of them for rent, plus 300 sheltered housing units.
The Tel Aviv Municipality told "Globes": "The process of developing the Ha’argazim neighborhood required a social plan that would allow for the development of the neighborhood while providing a suitable solution for people holding properties there who arrived after the publication of the tender. The process of formulating the plan took three years, and included dialogue between representatives of the residents of the neighborhood and the developers, mediated by the Tel Aviv Municipality." Ultimately it was decided that those recognized as holding rights would sign a vacation-compensation agreement with the developers.
As mentioned, the 1996 tender spoke of 110 square meter apartments (four rooms) and financial compensation of $50,000. Those who came to live in the neighborhood between 1986 and 1994 will receive three-room apartments. Those who arrived between 1995 and 1998 will pay NIS 750,000 for the apartments; and those who moved there between 1999 and 2004 will pay NIS 1 million.
Children of those entitled under the tender who were aged 43 or more in 1996 will also receive apartments gratis, while those younger than that will pay between NIS 750,000 and NIS 1.25 million for apartments.
The market prices of the apartments could reach NIS 35,000 per square meter, so that the value of the benefits received by the residents will be at least NIS 1.5 million in today’s terms. Altogether, they will be allocated 240 apartments in the project. About 350 residents of the neighborhood have been recognized as entitled to compensation, but there are those who have not been recognized who are claiming that they have been disenfranchised. Most of the claims have been dismissed by the courts, which means that those who have not proved entitlement and refuse to evacuate will have legal orders issued against hem in the past enforced. They are estimated to be few in number.
Ronen Jaffa explained that the developer waited until recently before sending out the evacuation agreement letters because the compensation plan could not progress until there was an approved building plan. The project is currently in the process of being designed architecturally, and Jaffa hopes that building permits will be obtained within two years, which would mean that the Ha’argazim neighborhood circle will be closed exactly thirty years after the Israel Land Authority’s original tender.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on November 24, 2024.
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