The Planning Guidelines Committee (PGC) of the Planning Authority in the Ministry of the Interior will discuss next week the Mevo Beitar non-designated land tender plan, which is opposed by Green organizations, headed by the Society for the Preservation of Nature in Israel (SPNI). The plan has been approved by the district committee.
The Green organizations claim that the Mevo Beitar non-designated land tender plan is actually part of a larger plan of the Israel Land Administration to found a large town. Since the plan for the city has already been rejected by the committee, the Greens claim that the Mevo Beitar plan should not be discussed until discussions of the Jerusalem Outline Scheme, the planning of which commenced two months ago, are concluded.
The SPNI also claimed that the whole plan is superfluous, since a lack of area in Jerusalem has not been proven. The SPNI therefore sees no reason to add more area to what has been allotted in the National Outline Scheme (NOS).
According to the SPNI, the NOS allows 21% additional areas, providing that it is shown that all available land reserves have been utilized, which is not the case.
The SPNI said that NOS 31, which was approved in 1998, allows the settlement to be expanded into a suburban settlement of 20,000 residents, who will live in 5,000 housing units, but not more than that. The Greens claim that founding another city near Jerusalem will cause the capital seriously harm, leading to a heavy flight of residence from the city, and also harming Beit Shemesh.
Published by Israel's Business Arena on January 9, 2000