Tel Aviv’s residential construction plans have been thrown into disarray by the Tel Aviv-Yafo municipality’s decision not to extend the Tama 38 project, which will reinforce and expand existing buildings to protect against earthquakes. A series of projects promoted in recent months will be halted and tenants will have to reconsider their options. The Tama 38 projects will not be approved by the end of next month if the Tel Aviv Planning and Building Committee approves the decision not to submit an alternative plan next week.
The National Comprehensive Plan for Strengthening Existing Buildings Against Earthquakes (TAMA 38) officially ends nationwide on August 29. Municipalities that requested the preparation of an alternative plan for TAMA 38, according to their rules and definitions, have received approval, and TAMA 38 has been extended in their areas until May 2026. The condition for this was to submit the alternative plan to planning institutions by August 1.
In recent months, there have been reports that the Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality does not intend to submit its own alternative plan by the deadline, despite having recommended in June 2023 that such a plan be approved for submission to the Tel Aviv District Planning and Building Committee, “subject to the completion of the documentation.” Since then, the plan has practically not advanced toward its formal submission.
Now, it turns out that the municipality has no intention of submitting it on time. City Engineer Udi Carmeli recommends announcing at the next meeting that TA 5555 will not be submitted before August 1, and thus TAMA 38 in Tel Aviv will expire on August 29.
“Abandoned Apartment Owners”
“Route 38 has proven over its 19 years of operation that it has not served its purpose where it was most needed,” the document on the committee’s agenda next week states. “While Route 38 has been licensed in the city, it is not necessarily an effective route, which is an understatement. It does not even provide certainty to the market.”
Later in the document, the reasons for not submitting TA 5555, the alternative plan to TAMA 38, on time are given: “Due to the Iron Sword War, with all its implications, and the local authority elections which also ‘contributed’ to the delay, especially with regard to the public participation process, the procedures for preparing the program documents have not yet been completed. The plan is expected to be submitted to the local committee by the end of 2024, and the public participation process for the plan is expected to begin in September 2024.”
However, other municipalities have been successful in promoting replacement plans in their cities during this period. The Ramat Gan Municipality submitted its plan to the District Committee in the past few days, and the Ramle Municipality has already completed the full approval process for its replacement plan.
As a result, tenants who have started promoting TAMA 38 plans for their buildings will be back at square one, and will have to promote their building renovations in other ways, or wait for the municipality to complete approval of its alternative plan, a process that will take months in the best-case scenario.
Market sources believe there are dozens, if not hundreds, of these projects that will be affected. “There are projects where we stopped minutes before the permit application was due because we realized we ran out of time,” says Dan Halbert, an attorney who specializes in supporting tenants of Tama 38 projects. “That means the project is gone, after a long period of effort, months of commercial and legal negotiations, preparation of agreements, discussions, meetings and conferences.”
“The recommendation of the Tel Aviv-Yafo municipal engineer stems from purely financial considerations, without any consideration or balance with other weighty considerations, including the personal safety of the city’s residents,” adds attorney Ishai Itzikovich, partner and head of the real estate department at Agmon Law Firm with Tulchinsky.
This article was published in Globes, Israeli Business News – en.globes.co.il – on July 25, 2024.
© Copyright Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2024.
