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Why in our backyard? By Raz Smolsky Tags: Eretz Israel Museum, Tel Aviv  The Eretz Israel Museum has a winning card: a Land-of-Israel banquet hall that will host Land-of-Israel weddings and bar mitzvahs, with Land-of-Israel songs and dancing; Land-of-Israel catering and Land-of-Israel noise to disturb the neighbors. At present there is a Land-of-Israel struggle between the neighbors and the museum at the regional planning and building appeals committee, where the Tel Aviv municipality is stuck in the middle, promoting contradictory stances. This is not the first time museum officials have decided to allocate space for private events that have no connection whatever to the museum. The museum used to operate a temporary party hall, but this was closed down by the city after over 10 years of "temporary" operation. Until it closed, the hall was a nuisance to its neighbors in Ramat Aviv. The guests' cars caused traffic jams on Haim Levanon Street, the main access road into the neighborhood and also the road that leads to the museum's parking lot. Guests who wanted to avoid paying for parking cruised the neighborhood's streets and parked in spots intended for neighborhood residents. The music that gladdened the celebrants blasted the neighbors' homes. Now the museum hosts more staid business functions, lectures and conferences. Advertisement While the neighbors were waging a legal battle against the banquet hall, the city was promoting an urban building plan (UBP) for the museum. Ilan Cohen, the museum's director general, relates that the museum submitted a list of future uses that he wanted approved under the new UBP, including the construction of a permanent family event hall. In 2005 the new UBP went into effect; the construction of the hall was approved, but only for lectures. Engaged couples and other family-event planners will have to celebrate in other halls. The neighbors expected the new UBP to put an end to the dispute over the function hall, but were disappointed. The museum's managers were not giving in. If they could not get approval for their wedding hall under the restrictive normal regulations, they would do so under the wide-open "exceptions" clause. The exceptions concept entered planning jargon in order to gain quick approval for various other uses for buildings. Since changing the designation of a building is a lengthy process, a short bypass route was created for obtaining approval for additional uses. An industrial building, for example, could become a commercial building. Offices could be turned into residences; or apartments into preschools - all according to the needs of the moment. The UBP included the construction of a 1,200-square-meter hall for conventions, but not for private parties such as weddings. The granting of approval for weddings under the exceptions clause might have been acceptable if the UBP applicable to the museum had been an ancient plan that was not in touch with the needs of contemporary reality. Such approval might even be acceptable if there were future plans for a banquet hall that the city was simply bringing forward. The Eretz Israel Museum, however, does not fall into either of these two categories. The new UBP was approved just three years ago, and meets the contemporary needs of the area. Even more astounding is the fact that the approval for exceptional use is being sought for a building that is still on paper. It has not been used for even one day for its designated purpose, and the museum is already trying to use it for something else. How does the museum explain this absurd situation? The museum plans to hold a BOT (buy, operate, transfer) tender for the operation of the hall. In other words, a private developer will finance the cost of the construction, in exchange for which he will be allowed to operate it for 10 years and will then transfer it to the museum. Attorney Kobi Shaked, who represents the museum, claims that if there is no permit for family events to be held at the hall, it will be hard to attract interest in the tender, due to the high costs involved. In other words, if the exceptional - and profitable - use of the building is not approved, no developer will be interested in building the hall. The Tel Aviv local planning and building committee, which would not approve the operation of the conference hall as a banquet hall, did approve the exceptional use of the hall for weddings, ritual circumcisions and all other family events. This outraged the neighborhood's residents, who have not forgotten the noise from previous events held at the museum, and who hastened to file an appeal with the regional planning and building appeals committee. "The museum sits in the heart of a residential neighborhood," says neighborhood committee chair, attorney Eitan Akiva, "and has no infrastructure to support all its activities: the museum itself, the Beit Lessin Theater's plays, concerts and dance performances, and lectures in a hall that seats 200. When all the halls are operating at once, there is an overload. Now they want to build a 1,200-square-meter hall. There is no doubt that this is a place that will host functions every evening, and hundreds of cars will enter our neighborhood at the same time its residents are returning from work." A closer look at the behavior of the Tel Aviv municipality and the local planning and building committee raises another question: Why approve an exceptional use as a banquet hall when the city excluded this use from its new UBP? Harela Uzon, the representative of local planning and building at the appeals committee, explained that the rationale behind the decision to approve the banquet hall was economic. "The UBP allocates 1,000 square meters for public space, and a conference is defined as a public purpose. In order to make the best use of this space, however, we need external financing. Such financing can only be obtained if the local committee approves the exceptional use as a banquet hall." This means that the museum and the local planning and building committee view the exceptional use of the hall for events as an economic lever. If this use is not approved, the hall will not be built and the general public will not be able to enjoy the building when it is being used for its designated purpose - conferences. Uzon has an even more far-fetched theory. "If you look at the Yarkon River region, you will not find many banquet halls. True, they are not like pre-schools, which need to be close to home, but the local committee has also examined the distribution of banquet halls in Tel Aviv, and there are only two north of the river, at the port and at the Congress Center." The museum asks and the committee acquiesces; and the neighborhood's residents are left to fight the battle for the quality of their northern neighborhood alone. "All I am trying to do is to express our fears," says Akiva. "We have already had bad experiences. The weddings held here in the past caused traffic jams and noise. We do not need expert opinions from noise and traffic consultants. We live opposite the museum and know what will happen." Cohen has promised that the hall will hold events for up to 550 people, and that the infrastructure will be upgraded during construction. The parking lot will have two entrances and exits; 60 more parking spaces will be built inside the museum compound for the hall's use and the building will be acoustically designed and insulated against noise, with a sound reduction system. The issue of the banquet hall on the museum grounds is still being debated by the regional appeals committee, but with all their discussions of the planning and building law, they are forgetting the question of whether operating a banquet hall on the museum grounds is appropriate, or whether this is the exploitation of a public institution, which from the outset should not base its activities on considerations of profit. "The Tel Aviv municipality fully supports us, but we need to host weddings in order to stay alive," says Cohen. "All the museums and cultural institutions around the world also have economic motives. The Louvre in Paris, the MOMA and the Metropolitan in New York - they all host weddings." 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