Barkat Defends Park Against Kahlon Rezoning

Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon’s housing steamroller is set to flatten Yerushalayim’s Mitzpeh Naftoah nature park to make way for 1,400 apartments, The Times of Israel said on Tuesday.

If, that is, he can move Yerushalayim Mayor Nir Barkat and environmental groups out of the way.

The housing cabinet, chaired by Kahlon, announced Monday that Mitzpeh Naftoah, located just south of Ramot, will be designated a “priority area” for construction of new housing units.

The project is part of Kahlon’s plans to alleviate the shortage of moderately-priced housing by building thousands of new units.

However, any such building must be approved by government planning committees and be submitted for public hearings. That process, notoriously protracted under the best of circumstances, could become an insuperable obstacle if Barkat and others opposing it decide to make it so.

“It’s not clear to me why the Israel Lands Authority chose to thumb its nose so crudely at the municipality’s policy,” Barkat wrote in an online statement on Monday.

“Mitzpeh Naftoah is one of the principal green lungs of the city — which according to experts, contains one of the unique natural sites in the world in terms of its wealth of biodiversity, including a wide range of local wildlife, such as the largest herd of gazelles in the Judean Hills and other animals — now in danger of extinction,” he said.

“I won’t allow them to revive construction plans in west Yerushalayim that will bring serious harm to the city and the destruction of its green areas,” he vowed.

Environmental groups and residents of the Ramot neighborhood have voiced opposition, citing landscape, recreational and environmental issues.

“One thousand five hundred species of plants exist in England, and here, squeezed in an area of 60 hectares [148 acres], there are 500 species of plants. Nowhere in the world is there such a rich biodiversity packed in an area so dense,” Professor Alon Tal, of the Jewish National Fund, told the Walla news site.

“One hundred species of birds and a rich variety of animals [live in the park], some of which are threatened with extinction. It’s also one of the final remaining vantage points where one can get a glimpse of the scenery of [Yerushalayim as it existed at the time of] Kings Dovid and Solomon. It also contains archaeological remains and remnants of ancient agriculture,” he said.

“The tragedy is that [they’re doing it]… to try and lower the price of housing, but there are other alternatives to such an exceptional site,” he said.

The park rezoning represents just the beginning of a nationwide program to be mounted by Kahlon as the new housing czar.

The housing cabinet on Monday unanimously approved Kahlon’s plan to consolidate all housing-related government bodies under his control. It calls for the Finance Ministry to  take control of the Building Planning Committee from the Interior Ministry, and to create a housing development council within the Finance Ministry.

“The housing crisis is not a crisis, it is a national emergency,” Kahlon said, calling the consolidation the first steps to dealing with it. “I see the housing crisis as the greatest driver of poverty and am committed to dealing with it.”

Kahlon has also succeeded in excluding the Ministry of Environmental Protection from the housing cabinet, a move that has aroused the environmental lobby.

“Concentration of authority in the Finance Ministry and weakening the regional planning councils indicate a dangerous trend that will speed up irresponsible construction,” Green Course CEO Mor Gilboa said at a protest outside the ministry.

Meanwhile, in a separate development, the housing cabinet approved 20,000 new units in the fast-track “vatmal” system, which was established by the previous government. The units are slated to be built in Kiryat Gat, Netanya, Beersheva, Kiryat Tivon and Tamra.

This article appeared in print on page 34 of the June 10th, 2015 edition of Hamodia.