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Nat'l planning body: J'lem, Lod, Ramle take priority over Modi'in By Guy Lieberman Tags: israel, modi'in, jerusalem Eighteen years after the National Planning and Building Council approved the establishment of the city of Modi'in, the council has reversed direction: There is a need "to act to strengthen Jerusalem, Lod and Ramle and give them preference over the additional growth of Modi'in," wrote the commission. The nation's highest planning body also set the city's population limit at 120,000, at this stage. This flies in the face of plans by the municipality and various developers, especially the Azrieli group which opened its new mall in the city less than a month ago. Expectations were for the population to exceed 200,000. The decision to give priority to cities such as Jerusalem, Ramle and Lod over Modi'in comes after years of complaints by mayors of those cities that they were discriminated against. Advertisement Yoel Lavi, the mayor of Ramle, praised the planning council's reappraisal. "I claimed in the past that the decision to expand Modi'in, as well as the attempt to expand Be'er Ya'akov, seriously harms Lod and Ramle demographically. The Ministry of Housing never examined what would have happened if Modi'in wasn't built, and if the enormous investments had been used for Lod and Ramle," said Lavi. Architect Meron Cohen of Moshe Safdie's architectural firm, which designed the city's master plan, called the decision "political." "There is more politics than reality in this decision, since all the material presented to the commission supports my approach that Modi'in does not harm Lod, Ramle or Jerusalem," explained Cohen. "Anyone who says Modi'in was planned to be a city of a quarter million people is wrong," said Interior Ministry Director-General Aryeh Bar. "From the outset it was [planned for] 120,000 residents, and we are acting according to the original plan," explained Bar. However, Bar says the decision to favor Jerusalem, Lod and Ramle is more a general policy, and not really an operational plan. "The significance of the decision is that if we are presented with requests to approve plans for Modi'in or Lod, we will give priority to Lod. We are not talking about making plans for those cities," said Bar. Bookmark to del.icio.us   Smoking kills Tehran slams McCain for saying cigarettes could be used to kill Iranians. Case of deja vu Olmert and his office chief Shula Zaken were accused of similar charges back in 1991.

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