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Higher and higher By Shani Shilo Tags: Tel Aviv On Friday, May 30, worried inhabitants convened in Amsterdam Park in Tel Aviv. The reason for their gathering was their concern over a multistory building planned for the lot of the old Assuta Hospital. Neighborhood residents were called upon to do what they could to stop the approval of the construction of the 38-story building that is planned for near their homes. Every few months one hears about one group or another of residents who are attempting to avert an evil decree, and prevent the construction of a large compound or a tall building in their backyard. This time it is the turn of neighbors of the Assuta Tower. Lobbyist Nir Kleiner, a neighbor and a leader of the anti-Assuta campaign, says that it is the intention of entrepreneur Shaya Boymelgreen to put up a luxury residential project, with 220 housing units, on the 26,000-meter site of 26,000 square meters, in the heart of one of the quietist and most pleasant residential neighborhoods in the city. According to Kleiner, "The plan that has been approved by the local planning and construction commission would grant the developers the option to build am area that is nearly twice what which the lot is currently entitled to. It is estimated that the apartments will sell for $500,000 to $1.5 million, or a total of $160 million, which is half a billion shekels." Kleiner notes: "By profession I am a lobbyist, but in this case I am the citizen next to whose home a skyscraper is being built. And not just any skyscraper, but one that is identical in height to the square tower of the Azrieli project. [But as opposed to the Azrieli building,] This isn't along an urban artery, but rather against a background of low structures. This building will cast a shadow on the Basel Tower. The Basel Tower will become the dwarf of the neighborhood. "The municipality is pushing the project without having commissioned a survey of its potential impact on the environment from the Environment Ministry. There are places where it is correct to build skyscrapers. Do you want Manhattan? Put it up near the Akirov Towers. But no one has examined what the effect would be of a mass that is equivalent to having another neighborhood inside a neighborhood. What will it mean for the environment? Is there a sufficient infrastructure of kindergartens, HMO clinics and roads?" Kleiner adds that "the people who want to make so much money are the municipality and the entrepreneur. Two years ago they convened the residents and presented the plan to them. They said that there would be an opportunity to present objections, but then they disappeared." Advertisement In any event, says Kleiner, "I don't agree to having a closed compound here, like the Andromeda Hill project in Jaffa, which only the wealthy are allowed to enter." Boymelgreen Capital bought the Assuta compound $52 million in April 2006. The previous owners were Gad Zeevi, Eyal Yonah and Danny Goldstein. At the beginning of 2008 part of the property was bought by Chen Lamdan, controlling owner of the Lamdan Holding Company. The planning is being undertaken by Moshe Tzur Architects, which is responsible for a number of prominent skyscrapers in Tel Aviv, among them the Be'eri Nehardea Towers. Tzur, an associate professor of architecture at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, and the proprietor of the Moshe Tzur firm, says that contrary to the claims of the projects' opponents, the building will only contribute to the neighborhood. "We had a similar experience with the Be'eri Nehardea project, the building of which has upgraded the neighborhood. The residents' objection is understandable emotionally, but it isn't clear whether this is everyone's interest. These struggles are motivated by desires to obtain certain things. In the case of Assuta, the residents' situation has improved since the hospital was moved out of there. After all, a quality residential project is better for a neighborhood than a hospital." Tzur adds that "the project includes a massive preservation component, which is important to the quality of the place and for Tel Aviv. One of the reasons the planning commissions have encouraged the project and added building rights is because this is the only possibility, in terms of cost, for the preservation to be undertaken. The cost of such activity is high and it makes the parking facilities more expensive, and this has taken on significance because the project includes public parking lots. "The shadowing has been examined by experts, as has the traffic. I invite everyone to go by Be'eri Nehardea and see what the impact is of the skyscraper on a similar neighborhood fabric. After all, ultimately our aim is to create a quality environment and not - as is commonly said in street language - 'to bang out a bunch of apartments and go home.'" In a hearing on the plan held by the regional planning commission last November, it was argued that there is an inherent problem in the building a 38-story tower in the heart of the historic section of Tel Aviv included in the city's original 1932 master plan of Patrick Geddes, and that the current plan lacks sufficient public areas and public buildings. Additionally, it was argued that the developers had not included, in the 300-percent additional building rights they received in return for their promise to undertake preservation, the areas intended for preservation. In that way, it was claimed, they tried to obtain for themselves an addition larger that the one the municipality had intended to grant them. In the end, the plan was approved, although not without a number of restrictions, among others that the building should not rise higher than 160 meters and that this should be stated in a clear manner by the city engineer. The intention of this was to prevent another case like the Nechustan Tower in Neveh Tzedek, where the city limited only the number of stories, but not an overall height, a situation that was exploited by the entrepreneurs to make the building taller by creating double stories." The project's opponents believe that they will succeed in their struggle thanks to such precedents as the success of the parents who were able to save the headquarters of the Dizengoff Scouts troop in the Remez-Arlosoroff compound (a campaign in which Kleiner was involved) or the compromise agreement that was obtained with respect to the project that was planned for the site of the Dan bus cooperative garage. But not everyone shares their optimism. Israel Godovitz, the owner of the architectural firm that bears his name, and a former Tel Aviv city engineer, argues that in the case of the Assuta Tower, it could be said of the residents' protests that they are too little and too late. "The fight against the Assuta Tower is a foregone failure." Godovitz was a partner to several struggles against building plans in the city, among them the Dan garage project. He believes that the average citizen doesn't really have the ability to change plans after they have received initial approval and been passed on for final approval. He calls the objections that a citizen is entitled to file equivalent "mosquitoes that are trying to hurt an elephant." "When I was city engineer, I tried to persuade the entrepreneurs of the Dan garage not to build a skyscraper. I proved with all kinds of signs and portents that the developers were making a mistake economically, never mind from the public perspective. I estimated that the attempt to increase the building rights would delay the work, and indeed they haven't started yet to this day, 10 years later. The stubborn insistence on building a skyscraper doesn't bring any economic benefit. And the entrepreneurs' only answer was, 'people like skyscrapers.'" It is important to Godovitz to note that he is not against skyscrapers as a rule, but is opposed to those that he sees as harming the urban fabric of Tel Aviv, in an area that has been defined as a historic urban zone. "In Paris, the area of the historic city is well defined, and it is forbidden to build higher than eight stories there. But in Israel there is no understanding of what this is liable to cause." The city center that was planned by Geddes is called by many people the "White" or "historic" city. In fact, the area can divided in two. The first part was declared by the United Nations Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (Unesco) to be the White City, and the contruction of tall buildings there is permitted only at certain spots. The second part stretches from north of Arlosoroff Street to the Yarkon River. This part is not included in the Unesco protected area. Godovitz argues that "Assuta is one of the towers that is located beyond the historic city as determined by City Hall. All of the residents of this part of Tel Aviv need to know that they are living on the brink of an abyss, because there is nothing to prevent the regional planning commission from approving skyscrapers there. No one understands the justified arguments about the transportation problem. There are no parking spaces and the roads aren't wide enough. A parking lot in the building isn't going to provide enough to solve the parking problem in the area, which already exits today. Tel Aviv is not able to contain a skyscraper of that magnitude in this area. There is a limit to the desire to feed the real estate sharks." Bookmark to del.icio.us   Nazi hunted Nazi sheltered by Austria seen enjoying Euro 2008 games. Battle of the attitude An 'Israeli au pair' seems to be the ultimate oxymoron.

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