The District Planning and Building Commission has approved for validity an outline plan for Beer Yaakov.
Beer Yaakov is currently a local council with 26,000 residents, following rapid development in recent years. The plan assumes that the IDF will fully vacate its Tzrifin camp, and that part of the area will be attached to Beer Yaakov. The plan provides for construction of 27,000 more housing units in the town, with a population of 85,000 residents.
In addition to the new homes, the plan allocates two million square meters in business space, 27,000 square meters in commercial space, and 655,000 square meters for public buildings. A team headed by urban planner Moshe Cohen designed the plan.
The plan proposes an urban skeleton connecting the existing parts of the town south of Road 4313 with the new development areas, most of them located in Tzrifin. A large proportion of the plan's solutions for the old town - the central business district, municipal institutions and services, a municipal park and educational institutions - are located in the new development areas. The plan also contains historical sites for preservation, such as the Hassan Salameh headquarters, remains of the Sarafand village, etc.
32 objections were filed to the plan by public and private parties. Among the notable ones were the objection filed by Adv. Eyal Mamo on behalf of Moshav Talmei Menashe and Moshav Neve Doron, both of which lie within the Beer Yaakov municipal jurisdiction, and which object to both the absence of planning and construction on their agricultural land. Another objection was filed by Adv. Eli Wilchek on behalf of Sh. I.R. Shlomo Real Estate, which wants to rezone land that it owns from business to residential. The District Planning and Building Commission dismissed both objections.
The Beer Yaakov local council engineer filed an objection asking that the plan refer to a specific target year, as is the case with many other outline plans. Her objection was dismissed on the grounds that the relevant issue is the size of the planned population.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on February 23, 2020
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