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Last update - 04:33 09/05/2008 We changed our minds ... By Daniel Orenstein Tags: israel Over Passover, I visited a small public beach south of Kibbutz Palmahim called Dayagim (Fishermen's) Beach, along with about 50 other activists and citizens. A dozen tents dotted the half-kilometer of shoreline, children played in the tidal pools, and fishermen cast their lines into the sea from out on the rocks. Behind me to the north and south were kurkar (hardened sandstone) ridges covered by a diversity of sand dune plants. In between the ridges was the proverbial poke in the eye: an area recently cleared by bulldozers and surrounded by a graffiti-splattered, two- meter-high metal fence. That fence is a prelude to the potential fate of the beach. A lawyer explained to our group the process by which development rights for the beach had been sold on the cheap, about four years ago. According to our interlocutor, during the second intifada and in the midst of an economic slump, the Israel Lands Authority was eager both to generate revenue and to stimulate economic growth. Selling off development rights to create a vacation village on this beach was part of that effort. By 2009, a 350-room resort, replete with parking lots, shopping centers and boardwalks, will replace the sandy ridges and empty shore. Israel is blessed with 190 kilometers of Mediterranean coastline. Of that, 50 km are closed off for military, industrial and infrastructural use. The rest includes 60 km of urban shoreline, 40 km of nature reserves and parks, and another 40 km of open space. While that sounds like a lot for public use, according to a 2000 Ministry of Environment report, "massive pressures from both developers and municipalities for coastal sites have led to repeated breaches of the coastal master plan, particularly in relation to the prohibition of construction within 100 meters of the coastline." The report goes on to note that in such cities as "Tel Aviv, Haifa, Herzliya, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Netanya and Nahariya, private developers, together with municipalities, economic development companies and the Israel Lands Administration, have transformed coastal resources into real estate destined for high-income residential development." Advertisement Indeed, Israel - a country with great environmental laws and rather poor enforcement - has succumbed to many aggressive violations of coastal development standards. A particularly blatant example, the Le Meridien Hotel in Haifa, stands like a solid wall between a working-class neighborhood and the view its residents used to have of the sea. The contractors violated their development rights in several ways, and were it not for the vigilance and actions of neighborhood activists and the Israel Union for Environmental Defense, who appealed to the courts to halt expansion of the construction, this scar on the Haifa coast would have been extended thrice. Activists opposing the development of the Dayagim Beach also believe that even the approved development plans for the holiday village will spill over to development of the shore. They also believe that the plan, though it's been approved, violates the spirit of a law that was passed just weeks after the approval was granted. That law - the Law for the Protection of the Coastal Environment - states in strong words that the Mediterranean shoreline must be protected from development as a natural asset for public use and enjoyment. A growing number of citizens now feel it was a mistake to grant development rights to build here. The mayor of Nes Tziona has gone so far as to offer to buy the beach back from the developers in the name of the public. And environmental activists would like to stop the project cold. The problem is that approval for the work was granted through a legal and transparent process. So either the public was just too slow in responding to the threat of development, or we changed our minds. Either way, the coastal protection law is not on our side in this case, since it was approved only after construction rights had been approved. Knesset Member Dov Khenin (Hadash) is considering stepping in to address the quandary of what to do when development rights are granted - legally and fairly - but the public then changes its mind about a project's wisdom. He is considering introducing legislation that would empower the public with the ability to revisit approved development proposals, and to cancel them, if need be, to protect a vital public resource. Needless to say, fair compensation must be given to developers who had already invested time and money in the proposal. This idea has direct relevance to the Dayagim Beach controversy, as well as others, including the proposal to build a hotel in the Timna Valley in the southern Arava. This is another project in which developers followed an honest and transparent path toward approval, but where a growing number of local residents and sympathizers now regret that decision and seek to preserve the geological treasure. There is an intrinsic justice to Khenin's idea. In the conflict between development and open-space preservation, the long-term trend is always toward increased development. While open space preserved today may be compromised tomorrow, land developed is never returned to its former state. As good as our laws are to preserve open space, only the pace of development is affected by legislation and planning - never the direction. If successful, new legislation could provide a crucial tool for the growing number of citizens who understand the ecological, recreational, historical and aesthetic reasons for preserving some of Israel's open space for us and future generations. Daniel Orenstein is a postdoctoral fellow at the Technion's Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning, and a lecturer at the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies. Bookmark to del.icio.us   Siniora vs. Hezbollah The Lebanon prime minister accuses Hezbollah of staging a coup. Plant down - again Palestinians say tha Gaza power plant has closed due to a fuel shortage.

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