Elections for local councils and mayors of Israeli cities will be held on October 30. Candidates are becoming more and more active, trying to increase turnout and attract as many supporters as possible to their side.
Who will be put in the “garden city”
The position of mayor, especially in large Israeli cities, determines not only the choice of social and economic policy, but also the redistribution of financial flows, and therefore the money allocated to various infrastructure projects from the state budget. Their volume depends largely on the mayor’s connections with parliamentary parties. In the Knesset elections, an important argument for the electorate to vote for one party or another is the success in urban development of the mayors who put these parties in office.
Local election rhetoric combines political ideology and cross-sectoral confrontation with “trash in the streets” and public toilets. In Haifa, for example, the problem of dirty streets, crumbling houses, and closed public toilets on the beach and in the city competes with the topic of the “pro-Arabness” of the current mayor and discrimination against Russian speakers in the governing bodies of the municipality.
Beautiful pictures of Haifa as the “garden city” that the new mayor promises to turn the city into are as popular on social networks as the “transfer of pro-Palestinian Arabs” living in Haifa.
Ways to manipulate the minds of voters requires a separate article. So, let’s move away from ideology and fantasy to reality.
“Haifa Heavenly.”
The future mayor of Haifa will influence the distribution of huge financial flows and economic processes. Given the cost of city land and real estate, it is the mayor who determines how and to whom construction sites will be allocated, especially when land is scarce, and through whom housing reconstruction programs (pinui binui) will be implemented in the existing residential development area. Naturally, large construction corporations and financial-industrial groups fight for their influence over the future mayor both openly and secretly.
From this point of view, the most important document determining the future of Haifa is the City Master Plan, which outlines the directions of economic development, demographic expectations and ways to improve urban infrastructure.
Such documents are created and adopted taking into account the opinion of citizens, they should be open for review and posted on the website of the municipality. The lack of an approved and up-to-date General Plan allows the city leadership to distribute land and issue building permits in a manual mode, to direct money for repairs to those areas of the city where the mayor’s constituents are concentrated, and to solve business issues according to the level of personal interest. This applies not only to the incumbent mayor, but also to anyone who takes over as mayor of Haifa on or after October 30, 2018, in the second round – if there is one. The picture becomes all the more entertaining if the business of the future owner of the city is related to construction and design.
One can believe in the sincerity of the promises of the candidates for mayor to “relocate” city residents in an analog of social utopia, in “Haifa Heaven,” where the cleanest environment is combined with the most convenient public transportation, the best education and health care. To this should be added the nicest Arabs, closed in their neighborhoods, and a large number of Russian-speakers in the structures of the municipality.
If you set aside the global socio-political problems that the mayor is going to solve, solutions to the problems of development of the city will be rested on the economic solutions already adopted and the geopolitical situation of Haifa.
“Haifa Heavenly.”
There are some points that increase the “economic interest” in the position of mayor of Haifa and pre-program the direction of the city.
- First, government funding. In March 2018, Haifa municipality signed an “umbrella agreement” with the Ministry of Finance, the Israel Land Authority and the Ministry of Housing to allocate 3 billion shekels for the reconstruction of Haifa. 15,000 housing units will be built, some infrastructure elements of the port will be relocated and the Haifa waterfront will be opened in its place. Haifa could have tens of thousands of new residents, which would further increase the value of the land and exacerbate the desire of contractors in the old areas of the city to build new high-rises. Such a project would require reconstructing the railroad tracks and solving the problem of loading of transport infrastructure and public transport.
- Second, Chinese investment. Haifa is one of the cities in Israel that is experiencing strong Chinese economic expansion. The Chinese won the tender to build and operate a new port in Haifa.
In September 2018, Major General Shaul Horef, head of the Center for Maritime Policy and Strategy Studies at Haifa University, said that China’s presence in the Haifa port threatens Israel’s cooperation with the United States. The United States sees the People’s Republic of China as the main rival of the coming decades.
China is actively investing not only in the port. For example, at a September 18, 2017 signing ceremony between the University of Haifa and China’s largest company, Hangzhou Wahaha Group, University President Ron Roby said that the Chinese-Israeli research center at the University of Haifa for artificial intelligence development in partnership with the Chinese Academy of Sciences will be given at least $10 million over the coming years.
Billions of dollars China is going to invest in Israeli high-tech, where its share is now up to 20%.
In the construction and commercial market, China is clearly still winning over Israeli companies, and it is clear that it will be up to the mayor and the parliamentary parties supporting him to control Chinese expansion in Haifa. Although global experience shows that the Chinese know how to financially motivate not only mayors, but also leaders of states.
- Third, the increasing strategic importance of Haifa in international trade.
In June 2018, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Transportation and Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz announced the launch of the Regional Peace Rails project.
In the past few years, the war in Syria has diverted cargo flows from Turkey to the port of Haifa and from there to Jordan. In 2016, a rail line began operating from Haifa to Beit She’an, where a cargo terminal was also built to receive cargo that transits through the Sheikh Hussein border crossing. The new project will involve the construction of a rail network from the Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf. One of the branches of the new network will pass through Jenin, which will include the Palestinian Authority in the project.
Haifa Renewed
But what about the General Plan of Haifa, which determines the main directions of the city’s development for many years to come and which must be guided by the mayor of the city?
For 83 years, Haifa developed according to the Master Plan drawn up during the British Mandate. The Haifa City Hall website states that Master Plan No. 229חפ entered into force on February 15, 1934.
A fierce discussion around the new Master Plan 2000 חפ unfolded in 2014-2015. This can be seen, for example, on the website of opposition leader Einat Kalish, which contains a 170-page document with various additions and amendments to the draft master plan.
According to a November 10, 2016 article posted on Haifa’s Hebrew-language news site Haipo, the county’s Planning and Building Committee has approved a new Haifa Master Plan. It is a document that defines the development of the city, and according to which by 2025 the number of inhabitants of Haifa will reach 330,000 people.
To what extent will the new mayor be able to abandon the document already adopted and ensure that changes are made, in accordance with his campaign promises? The question remains open.
Haifa is problematic
Haifa, Israel’s dirtiest city with chemical industries, an oil refinery, and a port, will become a construction site in the coming years, where chemical emissions from Batei Zikuk and Chemikalim will mix with construction dust. This will all ensure Haifa’s number one cancer rate for decades to come.
The saddest part is that improving or canceling the Master Plan will result in new construction not beginning in accordance with the document negotiated by residents and approved by the City Council. Everything will happen based on political and economic expediency, determined by the city’s leadership.
From the above, a few questions for the mayoral candidates follow:
- To what extent is the future mayor in a position to change the Master Plan of Haifa, which will record his election promises?
- How will the Chinese-strategic plans for the development of Haifa affect the realization of the electoral pictures of the “garden city” proposed to the electorate?
Igor Kaminnik for carmelmagazine.info
Collage by Anna Utkina