The Petach Tikva municipality approved three urban renewal projects to build over 1,000 new apartments. The projects are among the largest ever approved by a municipality or local authority. Petach Tikva Mayor Yitzhak Ohayon is one of the initiators of the project.
The project involves temporarily moving the residents out of old apartments, demolishing the old buildings, building new ones and rehousing the residents in the larger apartments. The residents will be paid the cost of the move and temporary housing. The developer will sell the extra apartments on the open market, which will be the source of his profit.
The largest project is the construction of 600 apartments in the Shalom Asch neighborhood. Wachsman-Gubrin Engineers will be the main contractor. The site currently has 138 apartments, which will be demolished and 600 new apartments built. Although the plan has not yet been finalized, the municipality has approved the project at this stage.
The second project is for the construction of 288 apartments and a commercial center in the Amishav neighborhood. There are currently 100-150 old apartments on the site in 1950s housing projects. The project calls for the construction of 11 mostly 7-story buildings, each with 24 apartments. Public buildings, whose use has not yet been determined, will also be built. The contractor for this project has not yet been selected.
The third project is for hundreds of apartments in the Kiryat Argov neighborhood. Azriel Regev Projects, which has been active in Or Yehuda and elsewhere, was selected as the contractor.
Local authorities have recently shown increased interest in urban renewal projects. Projects were recently approved in Or Yehuda, Kiryat Ono and Givatayim.
Published by Israel's Business Arena on 28 January 2001