Jerusalemites with a nostalgic streak would do well to photograph their surroundings for posterity. If all goes according to plan, Jerusalem as we know it will barely exist in a decade from now.
Take for instance Keren Hayesod Street, which is busy enough these days with several bus routes, plus hotels on the street itself or on the adjacent side streets, eateries near the Jabotinsky end of the street, and three mini markets in the immediate vicinity.
But the powers that be are planning a light rail link and numerous commercial outlets at the ground level of high-rises that will dominate the future Talbiyeh skyline. This was disclosed last week by developers to a group of residents of the neighborhood. The developers are planning a mammoth residential project on the sites of two residential buildings on Ahad Ha’am Street and three residential properties on parallel Smolenskin Street.
Much more polite, honest, and seemingly considerate than any of their predecessors who had been rebuffed in previous years, the owners and representatives of two veteran Jerusalem development companies, D. Yamin and Neumann, who have worked together on other projects, presented their vision of what they want to achieve, along with slides of completed projects or those that are currently in the construction process.
Admittedly, the future project, if it becomes a reality, is attractive, and all the apartments are larger than the existing ones; but the total number of residential units will be tripled, and a small quiet street such as Smolenskin will become overpopulated. Ahad Ha’am, which is fairly quiet, has a lot of cars driving through from Katamon, Baka, and other parts of Talbiyeh in addition to the residents’ cars.
Imagine the chaos when the number of residents’ cars is tripled and when tour buses come through after two new hotels planned to be built on Ahad Ha’am are completed. One of the hotels is currently under construction.
In a beautifully designed brochure, the two companies leading the evacuate-and-build project presented a timeline that started with the meeting last week. This will be followed by a meeting with representatives of each building in April, the beginning of negotiations and legal steps in May, the conclusion of negotiations in December, the signed agreements by at least 67% of owners of residential units in May, and the final signing of agreements by 100% of the residents by December 2025.
Approval by the land registry authorities is anticipated in December 2028, receipt of a construction permit in December 2030, evacuation of all apartments in February 2031, and delivery of the keys of their new, larger apartments to all the signatories in July 2034.
According to the law, the plan can proceed if at least 67% of the residents agree. The remaining 33% who are opposed will have no choice other than to agree, as they are in the minority. Meanwhile, if the project goes ahead, the developers will pay the rent of temporary apartments that the residents will move into during the construction period.
The developers did their homework well, except for a few relevant aspects. They were not sufficiently cognizant of the number of immigrant residents whose Hebrew is far from fluent, nor of the number of non-resident owners of apartments. Therefore, the meeting in a nearby hotel was under-attended because the leaflets announcing it, which were placed in mailboxes, were not read by several of the residents and did not necessarily reach the non-resident owners.
Who owns the land in Jerusalem?
OTHERWISE, THEY were completely on the ball. The first question asked was about land ownership. There has been a lot of concern in recent years regarding apartment owners in Rehavia and Talbiyeh, whose apartments are located in buildings that stand on land that is either church-owned or land that was sold by a church to private investors.
As it happens, the land of all five buildings that are part of the project belongs to the apartment owners.
Aside from the time factor, during which there could be changes in the composition of the resident population, the downside is that not everyone will return to the floor in the buildings they currently occupy. The intimacy they enjoy in their present situation will no longer exist, and each building will become a mini-village in which most of the residents will not know each other, except if they happen to be in the elevator at the same time.
Even then, they may not even allow themselves a perfunctory greeting. It can be very lonely in a crowd.
Most of the buildings that were constructed in the 1950s, ‘60s, and ‘70s have very high ceilings. There is no guarantee that this will be the case in the new project. The explanation given was that the higher the ceiling, the fewer floors, which means that if all the ceilings remain high, the project will be at least two floors lower than intended, making it much less profitable.
On that subject, some people might wonder what’s in it for them moneywise. One of the residents who lives on Ahad Ha’am in an evacuate-and-build new complex that is not nearly as tall as the prospective project said his apartment has increased in value by more than a million shekels.
That’s all very well for people who may contemplate selling their apartments, but not for those who are moving into slightly larger apartments than they currently occupy. The developers are, in fact, acquiring all the airspace above the existing buildings.
D. Yamin, a company that enjoys challenges, built two additional floors on top of the Inbal Hotel; but both Neuman – headed by Gideon Neumann, a civil engineer who grew up and lives in the area – and D. Yamin are reluctant to build on top of existing apartment buildings and want to construct something completely new.
This is just a sample of the future Jerusalem. The architectural design by the Prus and Arenson firms does include a little respect for the past, but not nearly as much as was shown by Moshe Safdie when he redesigned the Old City and the Mamilla neighborhood, where he made a conscious effort to preserve their character.
As Jerusalem continues to look more like Manhattan or Hong Kong, it loses its unique quality, which is being sacrificed on the altar of urban renewal.
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