The Council for Higher Education in Israel refuses to allow Technion - Israel Institute for Technology to open a branch outside of Haifa.
The Petah Tikva municipality has canceled a deal to allocate a $25 million, 30-dunam (7.5-acre) compound to Technion - Israel Institute for Technology, near the Neve Oz neighborhood. The deal was cancelled after the Council for Higher Education in Israel refuses to allow Technion to open branches outside of Haifa.
The municipality had planned to allocated the compound without a tender, as permissible by law for land zoned for public use. The parties had been ready to complete the negotiations on the payment terms. Under the plan, Technion would have opened a campus where some of its faculties would operate in the first stage. In the second stage, the Petah Tikva campus would become a kind of Technion B for students from the center of the country.
Petah Tikva mayor Yitzhak Ohayon confirmed the report to “Globes”. He said he would not yet submit the deal’s cancellation for the municipality’s approval, since he hoped the Council for Higher Education would change its mind. Ohayon said that if its decision was final, the municipality would establish an institute for higher education on the site planned for the Technion.
No response was available from the Technion.
Published by Globes [online] - www.globes.co.il - on February 9, 2003