JERUSALEM – After a faint afternoon in the mountains west of Jerusalem, the Israelis swam in a spring-fed pool and picnic in the shade of a fig tree in a Bucolic shelter called In Lavan, as they have for years.
But they will not have much time to enjoy.
The developers want to build a district of 5,000,000 homes, a hotel and a business by throwing a stone over the Salt Ridge.
This is no ordinary land-use battle between builders and protectionists. Proponents of the project insist they are motivated not by profit but by a desire for money for the need for urban renovation in a dense, low-income Kiriat Mensheim nearby.
And war can set an example for similar battles. Israel, the country with the highest fertility rate in the developed world, feeds 200,000 more people every year the size of New Jersey, half of which is a barren desert. The resulting housing shortage is creating tremendous pressure to create less green space.
With the boom of modernity in the cities of Israel – by changing apartments – by building houses, the preferred option is to add houses instead of stopping the urban trap. Builders make a profit by selling additional new apartments on the upper floors, using the air rights to subsidize new homes.
In the Jerusalem neighborhood, 86 percent of the 142,000 units approved by 2040 have been placed as urban-renewal projects.
But it doesn’t work everywhere.
Opponents say the renovation of Kiriat Menasheim comes at the expense of the location that is the treasure of Jerusalem.
On the southwestern edge of Jerusalem, Kiriat Menasheim is within the borders that complement the 1967 Middle East War, when Israel occupied the Arab East Jerusalem.
In May, the National Planning Agency expedited plans to renovate Kiriat Manasseh’s 28-acre Hanurit complex, which currently has 6 subst6 low-rise buildings and is being converted into 1,700 new units. But the organizers could not include enough additional ments apartments for the developers to make a profit, officials say. And there is no option to add more units: the field is already too ga too.
Mostly stuck, the organizers set their sights on the virgin hills of Lavan Ridge. They worked on a deal with the Israel Lands Authority to subsidize Hanurit’s renovation, allowing builders to buy publicly owned land on Lavan Ridge at an 80 percent discount.
The purchase will allow builders to build a new neighborhood of 5,000,000 homes at a profit. The new homes will be a sweetener for developers, not for Kiriat Manasseh residents, which is likely. If they can afford it.
But the development of open rural areas instead of air rights will pay for urban renewal.
, Ortal Matzlia, 33, has lived almost all his life in his parents’ 580-square-foot apartment in the Hanurit complex. As a girl, she shared a bedroom with two siblings. Families with five or six children only pass through 430-square-foot leaky, run-down apartments, he said.
He said that under the planned renovation of its complex, the present owners will get an additional benefit of 270 square feet per apartment apartment. Elevators will rescue her who is now a four-flight walk-up.
“We’re talking not only about individual change, but also about social change: to bring a better population to the neighborhood,” Ms. Matzlia said. “It will only come if you have good buildings – not today’s ones.”
Ms. Matzlia said she was torn. He also loves hiking the Salt Ridge.
“We want to see that there will be greenery,” he said. “But, you know, we live like everyone else – a good life.”
Opponents call it a devastating blow: thousands of trees will be cut down. Wildlife is endangered. Construction can destroy mountain aquatic life feeding springs.
And Jerusalem’s 930,000 inhabitants will have less space to get cool and avoid the city’s concrete and mess.
“We are not like on shore; “We don’t have a beach,” said De Delia Robbins-Morgastern, 16, who runs the WhatsApp group in protest of the project. She called Ain Lavan a “holy place.”
He said, “We do not have the Sea of Galilee. “We go here. You can go to Ain Lavan on Friday, and there are 200 people. That’s where I go with friends. I go here sometimes for peace and tranquility. ”
Ly Diley acknowledged that officials had promised that construction on the ridge would make natural lakes unpredictable. But they will escape from now on, he said.
“When you see people on their balconies, will anyone want to go into the spring?”
Instead of giving developers green space, some critics say, the government will subsidize the urban renovation of Kiriot Manasseh.
“The need for supplementary land justifies harmful schemes and we will not accept this notion,” said Dr. Boymel, head of planning at the defense group Society for Protection NF Nature Israel. He said the plan was only the latest in a series of westward expansions in the Virgin Mountains of Jerusalem.
He said there was a better way for the government to “put its hands in its pockets” and provide cash subsidies to builders.
But Amit Pony-Kronish, head of the Jerusalem Urban Renewal Initiative, said there was no budget for such payments, especially given the current global economic crisis.
“If we have to choose between these projects of nature and old houses that are not safe for earthquakes again, safe building, there are no safe rooms and if Lavan Ridge can help it, I am for Lavan Ridge,” he said. “I think this is the only jus chitya to hurt nature.”
Organizers insist they have worked hard to minimize environmental damage. They said they have shrunk the project, which left Parkland near the springs and a hiking trail was uncontrollable and would plant a tree to replace everyone who climbed.
Deer living in the woods will also be given a special corridor of their own. As far as the aquatic life is concerned, if it is damaged, the authorities have vowed to install pipes in the tap water so that the bathers can enjoy the pool of Ain Lavan.
Opponents have appealed the project to the National Planning and Building Council. His decision is expected soon.
But opponents have also split.
Chanan Sack, 18, has been one of the most vocal activists on the issue, updating 1,600 people on the WhatsApp group and persuading legislators and city officials. He said he feels for the residents of Kiryat Menasheim, where he was a little boy.
“We had seven siblings in that small house, and we had to share the living room with a bookcase,” he recalled. “Those people deserve a better position. But you don’t solve any social faults by making others. ”
