The Tel Aviv District Planning and Building Commission has dismissed the objection filed by the Herzliya Municipality to the enlargement of the Dan Accadia Hotel in the city. This means a green light for the Federmann family, which owns the Dan Hotels Israel chain, to construct the largest hotel in Israel. The Dan Accadia will be expanded from 208 rooms to 1,350 rooms.
The plan, which Dan Hotels drew up a decade ago and which won the support of then Herzliya mayor Yael German, calls for a 1,350-room complex in three buildings of 17 to 18 floors each, in addition to commercial space and event and conference halls. Local residents filed many objections to the plan, mainly on the grounds that it would obstruct their views and would create traffic and parking congestion, particularly in the summer months.
After the plan for expanding the hotel was approved in the planning commissions, including in the National Planning and Building Council, and came into force in 2015, the Herzliya Municipality changed its stance, as Herzliya mayor Moshe Fadlon, who was elected after German was elected to the Knesset, opposed the plan, and the municipality appealed to the court demanding that the approval for the plan should be cancelled.
In 2016, the Tel Aviv District Court upheld the appeal and ordered that the decision of the National Planning and Building Council should be cancelled and that the matter should be returned to the local planning commission to discuss the traffic congestion expected from expansion of the hotel.
The Federmann family appealed against this ruling to the Supreme Court, but its appeal was dismissed. The Tel Aviv District Planning and Building Commission has now decided that the planned roads will be adequate for the expected maximum traffic load.
It should be pointed out that Daniela Posek, the chair of the Tel Aviv District Planning and Building Commission, was the city engineer in the Herzliya Municipality at the time that the hotel plan was approved by the local planning and building commission, with the support of then mayor German.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on September 17, 2018
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2018