A re-examination will be carried out to continue promoting the metro project (photo: official website, -)
A day after the new Minister of Transportation, Miri Regev, made it clear that she opposes the continued promotion of the metro project in Gush Dan and will bring it up for reconsideration, representatives of the construction and infrastructure industry petitioned the High Court demanding the cancellation of the huge tax imposed at the beginning of the week on anyone who wants to build or carry out urban renewal within the range of hundreds of meters around every place where a metro station is planned in principle.
The Association of Builders Builders, the Foundation for the Encouragement and Development of the Construction Branch of the Association and the General Histadrut, and the construction companies Y.H. Demari, Yamlit Peretz and the Hajj brothers submitted a petition to the High Court calling for the annulment of " Section 19 of the Subway Law", better known as the "Metro Law".
The petitioners claim that the decision actually stipulates that a group of entrepreneurs and apartment owners in Gush Dan, some of them hardworking people, will finance a flagship transportation project of the State of Israel for the general public.
This, the petitioners claim, is a law that unequally deprives the property owners of the apartments and land in what was defined in the law as "temporary influence zones", where any construction will "earn" a huge fine from the state, and does not meet the conditions of the restrictive paragraphs of a basic law: "Freedom of occupation and law Foundation, human dignity and freedom".
At the basis of the petitioners' claims, the fact that the state decided to collect a unique tax, the highest in its field in Israel, based on the metro plan in Gush Dan - which was not approved at all and that it is not at all certain that it will be approved.
The petitioners are represented by attorneys Matan Ben Shaul, Aden Adika and Elisheva Cohen from Yehuda Reva & Co.
The new Minister of Transportation, Miri Regev: opposes the continued promotion of the metro project (Photo: Flash 90, Yonatan Zindel)
According to the decision - the state will collect a 75% improvement tax from apartment owners in the metro area
The metro project, if approved, will be the most expensive in the field of infrastructure in Israel ever, costing NIS 150 billion and expected to include over 100 stations.
The state has decided to collect from any apartment owner who sells his apartment, or any new apartment that receives a permit in its area, a huge tax of 75% of the property's improvement value compared to the 45% collected until today in the same place.
The state claims that it is about to approve a broad addition of many building rights around the metro stations that will make the payment of the tax worthwhile, but in practice - an appraiser's opinion received by the petitioner group states that there is no expected addition of building rights around the planned stations beyond what currently exists.
The petitioners demand that the Supreme Court cancel, or in the worst case - order the reduction of the damage resulting from this law.
They present a calculation according to which: the unprecedented amount of the tax will mean that the owner of land or an apartment whose value will increase by a million shekels after new construction, will pay no less than 750 thousand shekels, which will be divided between the local authority and the state, regardless of the metro project.
The contractors' association and the petitioning construction companies demand that an alternative form of financing be determined for the metro project, which will replace the state's plan to finance the huge project only from the money of incoming owners near metro stations if they are ever built.
According to the petition, this is about "imposing a new and unusual tax on the owners of the land in the complexes to which the law applies".
The petitioners even demand from the state an answer to the question: why the date of application of the law will not be postponed and that the relevant tax collection will be carried out in accordance with the progress of the planning and construction of the metro project and remind that as of today the amendment to the metro law has not yet been passed, the enactment of which was delayed with the dissolution of the 24th Knesset.
Beyond that, the representatives of the contractors demand to reduce the large-scale influence complexes, those complexes where every apartment you build will require the payment of an improvement levy at an unprecedented rate.
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Haim Feiglin, vice president of the Boni Ha'aretz Contractors Association: "This is difficult news for the public in general, for urban renewal in Gush Dan and for the construction industry in Israel." (Photo: Kafir Sion)
Haim Feiglin, Vice President of the Association of Contractors Boni Ha'aretz:
"Anyone who currently lives in an old building in the area where a metro station in Gush Dan is supposed to be built, is about to become a prisoner of an illusory decision that the chances of it allowing the construction of the metro are zero. This is a national project, which if the State of Israel decides In the end, it will be able to be built solely with financing from the business/institutional/financial sector using the PPP method of transferring ownership to a public entity, which will finance and operate the metro system for many years. 105 metro stations to 75%, is not reasonable, and will be a significant barrier to development in the entire Dan block, including the cancellation of plans to build tens of thousands of apartments."
"This is bad news for the public in general, for urban renewal in Gush Dan and for the construction industry in Israel. Urban renewal goes beyond its main purpose, renewing the face of cities, producing new apartments, most of which will be built in place of old and life-threatening apartments, alongside the addition of new apartments that are a central part of the solution to the worsening housing crisis in Israel The metro tax should be canceled immediately and an applicable and legal plan established for the implementation and financing of the metro project if the government considers it of national importance."
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