Slow progress in huge northwest Tel Aviv plan

• Published date: 15 March 2023
• Publication title: Globes (Rishon LeZion, Israel)

TA/3700 extends over 1,900 dunams (475 acres) of land in the northwest of the city from Propas Street and the Nofei Yam neighborhood in the south to the municipal border in the north and from Derekh Namir in the east to the sea in the west. The land has thousands of owners including heirs of the original owners and heirs of heirs, with the plan being around for decades and finally entering the planning pipeline in 2004

TA/3700 currently includes 12,000 housing units, 1,500 hotel rooms, 147,000 square meters of office space, 68,000 square meters of commercial space and a 100 acre ecological park along the coast. But these numbers are likely to rise.

The plan's original balance and allocation tables were published in 2018, and drew about 130 objections from the owners. The conclusions of the objection investigator, appraiser Levana Eshed, led the municipality to the decision to amend the tables in May 2021. However, only at the beginning of the week, after many postponements, were the amended tables published. For the landowners, this is a particularly important step: the tables actually divide the plots between them in the future plan - both in terms of the location of the plot and the building rights that will be permitted. These tables determine what each landowner will receive when the plan is completed.

Land appraiser Dani Kamil of Kamil, Treshanski Refeal Real Estate Appraisers, which has been professionally supporting the plan for years, explains that the tables now being published could include many changes from the previous tables and recommends that each landowner checks through them carefully. He says, "This is land with many complications. There are quite a few owners there who own parts of land, parts of housing units, there are conflicts of interest between them and quite a few disputes. The republishing of the tables requires every landowner to check carefully what they are getting now: the result, compared to the tables of 2018, may change substantially, and it is a shame that they will find this out too late, after the time for objections and appeals has expired.

"I can say that we are already seeing dramatic changes in the new tables," said Adv. Miriam Donin-Shoob, partner at law firm EBN & Co., which represents many landowners in the plan. "But it is too early to determine what their impact will be right now on the landowners."

Tel Aviv Municipality said, "The documents of the appraisal principles and the revised balance tables, in...