Residents are demanding extra time to file objections, for fear of harming their quality of life. VTL: "A Program of National Importance"

• Gush Dan Metro Map

  Photo: 

  Illustration: 66AVI, Wikipedia

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Residents living on the planned metro route in Gush Dan submitted urgent requests to the National Infrastructure Committee (WTL) demanding more time to submit objections to the plan, which is expected to shake their lives for many years of construction and erection. , In less than two weeks.

The residents of the Neot Afeka neighborhoods in Tel Aviv as well as Moshav Hemed near Or Yehuda applied to the Hotal through the Anat Biran law firm for an additional 30 days to exercise their right to a reasoned, detailed and well-established submission. They claim the metro plan will severely impair their quality of life. Objections are not enough.

Near the Neot Afeka neighborhood, the Pinchas Rosen metro station will be built, instead of the previously planned Deborah Hanavia station. Adjacent to Moshav Hemed, the planning area for the metro project is planned, as well as a large-scale depot complex. In both cases, residents say, the state changed the plan close to the time it was filed for objections.

The metro plan was published for objections on 5.6.20, and residents were given 60 days to submit objections to the first line. According to them, some of the residents did not even know about the existence of the plan, since the state was content with hanging small signs in the streets and publishing a small ad in the newspaper.

"Complicated and complex procedure"

"The metro plan is a huge national infrastructure project, which will change the face of the Tel Aviv metropolitan area and the lives of hundreds of thousands of citizens, especially those bordering it," the requests read. "The program includes many aspects - legal, planning, environmental, economic, social, and all of these are anchored in thousands of sketches and documents to be studied."

It was further argued that organizing the residents of the neighborhood in favor of submitting objections to a plan of this magnitude is a complicated and complex procedure. First, a large number of residents must be made aware of the very existence of the program, explain what it is about, sign, mobilize resources to submit the achievement, and prepare expert opinions that will support the achievement. All this, with the background of the corona epidemic, which disrupts the deployment options.

According to Adv. Anat Biran, "The length of time the state has given to submit objections to such a huge plan is nothing short of a scandal. Anyone who enters the site of the planning director and tries to understand the plan encounters dozens or hundreds of documents and sketches that take days to understand. The wording of the wording is also unclear and there is a use of a legal word laundering, which makes it difficult to decipher the decrees contained in it.

Model of the light rail installed on Rothschild Boulevard // Photo: Ilan Kostika, Wikipedia

"For example, the plan freezes construction options along the arteries for many years, gives sweeping authority for the demolition of buildings even if they are not intended for demolition, allows for the establishment of settlement areas in residential areas where, among other things, construction of concrete plants and construction products will be permitted.

"The plan gives enormous flexibility to the perpetrator and almost negates the citizen's resilience. It is an unparalleled predatory plan, expressing unprecedented disregard for the quality of life of residents, as it allows expropriations of land for years and noise nuisance and air pollution within residential neighborhoods."

Injury to property owners

According to Adv. Biran, in addition to the damage to the residents, there is also severe damage to the property of the property owners along the lines, in the area of ​​the stations and in the organization centers.

Adv. Biran: "Funding for the ambitious project should be regulated in the Arrangements Law, and most of it is expected to be made from the imposition of special taxes. An examination of the bill on the arrangements in the economy, which has not yet been approved, shows that it includes not simple cuts such as raising the improvement levies to 75% of the improvement, imposing additional designated taxes, expropriating powers from local authorities and transferring them to Nata and more. To expropriate from the public large areas for commercial use, in order to be a source of income. "

The budget set for the metro is NIS 150 billion, but it is not clear how it was set and whether it includes all the compensation that the authorities will have to pay to the property owners from whom the land will be expropriated and compensation for impairment. Based on experience with previous projects, execution costs have increased several times over from the original estimates, and it can be assumed that this initial estimate is just the tip of the iceberg.

The Metro (Plan 103), under the authority of the National Infrastructure Committee) is a huge infrastructure project that runs throughout the Dan Bloc and the Tel Aviv metropolitan area. Metro plans are being published one after another these days, and the coming weeks are a window of opportunity for objections.

The entire project includes 3 lines that will pass through no less than 24 different authorities: Line M101 - from the north (Kfar Saba and Raanana) to the south (Rishon Lezion, Lod and Rehovot) via Tel Aviv. 102M - from east to west, from Petah Tikva, through Ramat Gan to Tel Aviv. Line 103M - a semi-ring-shaped line that passes through Bat Yam, Azor, Or Yehuda, Kiryat Ono, Ramat Hasharon and reaches as far as Herzliya, with an arm connecting to Ben Gurion Airport.

"Stability in advancing planning"

In response to the residents' claims, the National Infrastructure Committee stated:

"The deadline set by law for submitting comments and objections within 60 days from the date of publication balances the right to object and the interest of certainty and stability in advancing planning proceedings, and fulfills the principle of equality between opponents. This balancing point is valid in relation to LOT, which aims to promote programs of national importance. Fast and rigid, and even more so in relation to the metro infrastructure, whose importance and necessity are more than satisfactory. "

Advocate Yael Adoram, the Hotal's Legal Adviser, stated that "as consistently stated in the ruling, a request for an extension of time to file an objection should not be granted as a matter of routine, but only in exceptional cases and in the existence of circumstances that justify it."

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