The inhabitants of Ramat Hasharon should be breathing a sigh of relief. Israel Military Industries (IMI) plants near the city are slated to be relocated in the next few years, after years of activity, including firing tests and explosions. Instead of plants, which occupied valuable territory and polluted the surrounding soil and water, handsome residential neighborhoods will be built alongside blooming parks.

However, the new plan is arousing the strong suspicions of many Ramat Hasharon and nearby Herzliya inhabitants. They are expecting an insufferable traffic load as a result of the construction plan for new dimensions of the city and fear that the building plans will be advanced hastily before pollution in the soil and water is treated. This pollution has already led to the shutting down of a number of wells that in the past provided drinking water to the inhabitants of Ramat Hasharon. Recently a group of Ramat Hasharon residents established a non-profit organization called AHLA (Quality of Life for Inhabitants of Ramat Hasharon), whose objective it is to introduce changes into the building plan. The association has already submitted objections and begun conducting meetings with environmental groups and the region's mayors to obtain support for the cause.

23,000 housing units

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The IMI compound in Ramat Hasharon, which spreads over more than 7,000 dunams, is the security establishment's largest compound in the Dan Region. Under the plan that the state is advancing, the IMI plants will be relocated to the Negev, and 23,000 housing units will be built instead, along with employment areas on 1.3 million square meters. The plan will be advanced in stages and construction begun after each part is approved.

The plan has been defined by the Tel Aviv Regional Planning and Construction Commission (Dan Region) as "a plan with a green character," because it includes extensive park areas. "An introverted Central Park, split down the middle by a boulevard of trees slated for preservation," is how the plan's architect, Avi First, describes the green area in the heart of the complex. It has also been determined that a number of roads will be paved through the new complex to afford access to inter-city roads, and will connect to the light railway that is being planned for the Tel Aviv metropolis.

Such a large plan will not be realized in the next few years. Before it is implemented, it will be necessary to relocate the IMI plants, a process that could take a number of years. In the estimation of the planning commissions, most of the area will be populated only in the year 2030. The residents who will live there will belong to Ramat Hasharon, Herzliya and Hod Hasharon. The fact that this is a long-term plan does not comfort the inhabitants of Ramat Hasharon. They want to influence the plan even before it receives final approval. The plan is about to enter the presentation stage, a crucial stage in the approval of building plans. To examine all of its aspects, the association has brought in some residents from the environmental field, among them Dr. Shmuel Brenner, formerly a deputy director general in the Environment Ministry.

"The plan for the IMI city will bring approximately 100,000 inhabitants into the area," says Roni Rom, a founder of the residents' association. "In the area that is in the jurisdiction of Ramat Hasharon, this means doubling the population of the city. Altogether this means the addition of a population similar in size to that of the city of Herzliya, but that city spreads over an area that is four times larger." The association claims that the population density that will result will burden the transportation infrastructure of Ramat Hasharon, decrease the veteran population's quality of life and have a negative effect on the inhabitants of the new neighborhoods. According to Rom and Liron Yadla, another AHLA activist, the existing streets in Herzliya and Ramat Hasharon are unable to bear this load.

In a paper that the association has prepared, they noted that the IMI compound was currently surrounded mainly by neighborhoods with narrow and one-way streets. These neighborhoods will not withstand the transportation pressure of a main route that is supposed to connect them to the new complex.

What about pollution?

A second problem that is very worrying to the inhabitants is the treatment of the many environmental hazards that have accumulated over the years at the IMI installations. Their main concern is that there will not be a comprehensive survey of the pollution problems followed by purification of the soil and the water. According to planning commission decisions thus far, the pollution problems will be dealt with in stages: In each newly-built area, a survey and purification steps will be undertaken separately from the other areas. "The most basic thing that has to be done is to check the entire area before the construction, and in that context to undertake an historical survey of the pollution," says Dr. Brenner. "This is the way to determine what must be examined and to what depth drilling must be done."

Brenner asserts there is scorn for the accepted procedures of surveying and purification. As an example, he offers a small area on the margins of the IMI complex that has already been vacated, where construction work began even before the soil there was properly examined. "They want to roll the entire matter of purification and cleaning onto the contractors," he says. "Who is going to supervise them? Will a contractor have any interest in cleaning the area properly?"

The Tel Aviv Region planner at the Interior Ministry, Naomi Angel, believes however that the quality of life of the inhabitants of Ramat Hasharon and Herzliya will only improve as a result of the building plan for the IMI compound. "It is true that the area is facing a change, but this is a positive change that will improve the quality of life and prevent dangers that exist today as a result of the plants' activity. The construction plan includes connection to national roads like Highway 4 (the old Tel Aviv-Haifa road). Ramat Hasharon currently has an entrance from only one national road, and there is no chance of additional exits and entrances except by means of the IMI plan. Together with the connection to the train system there will be greater transportation benefit for the inhabitants. The building density in the complex will be characteristic of the Tel Aviv Region, 10 to 25 housing units per dunam. Much emphasis has been given to an open area that will be bisected by an impressive avenue of eucalyptuses, as part of the preservation of nature values that exist there."

As for the problem of the soil and water pollution, Angel says that prior to presenting a detailed plan, at each stage of the construction, a survey of pollution problems will be undertaken. A joint team from several governmental agencies will approve plans for the continued treatment of the soil, and the plans will move to advanced stages of approval on the basis of the state's commitment to its responsibility for the environmental pollution. The money that the state will receive as the result of marketing the lands to entrepreneurs will be used towards purification and cleaning activities.

Members of the AHLA association hope to meet with Angel in the near future to try to change the plan. They have also attempted recently to enlist support for their position from the mayors of Ramat Gan and Herzliya, as well as officials at the Environment Ministry.

According to the deputy director of the Tel Aviv Region at the Environment Ministry, Amir Eshed, up until a few years ago ministry officials also believed it was necessary to deal comprehensively with soil and water pollution. "We didn't want to hear about separate treatment of each area, and funding for the purification by means of marketing the land. Having no choice, our position has changed, after we saw that other means of action were not going anywhere." The Environment Ministry believes that interim solutions for treating pollution should already be implemented in the near future to prevent the spread of pollution.

The mayor of Herzliya, Yael German, has not responded to a query from Haaretz on the matter. The Ramat Hasharon municipality has sent the response that "Mayor Itzik Rochberger sees eye to eye on the matter with the inhabitants, but since this is a matter of future plans that will be implemented only 20 years from now, it is still early to arrive at hasty conclusions on this issue." This is apparently a mayor's way of assuaging inhabitants of his city without committing himself to a clear position regarding such an extensive plan.

Yudla and Rom say their fight will focus on the introduction of a number of significant changes into the plan. These changes include carrying out a comprehensive survey of the soil and ground water, and taking action to clean the area even before land is marketed to contractors and the final building permits are granted. On the matter of transportation, the inhabitants are arguing it is necessary to plan the major access roads from the new construction areas towards the east, to Highway 4, and not in the direction of Ramat Hasharon.

Another change comprises linking the park areas to Ramat Hasharon, while distancing the construction. In this way, the urban density will be reduced and the green areas in the immediate vicinity of Ramat Hasharon and Herzliya will be expanded. Rom believes this is not enough. "It isn't logical to bring so many inhabitants into an area like this. In our opinion, the overall number of housing units should be reduced."