The Housing and Construction Ministry has announced that it will subsidize apartments built under urban renewal programs in high-demand areas. The cities that signed the agreements will receive a grant of NIS 25,000 for every apartment that receives a building permit in a vacate-and-build project or an Outline Plan (Tama) 38 project in each of the next three years, on condition that at least 2,500 apartments of these kinds are constructed in each city. (Outline Plan 38 allows extra floors to be built on existing apartment buildings when they are reinforced against earthquakes. The plan will end in October unless it is extended.)
The ministry says that currently, many city mayors delay permits, claiming that they cannot absorb more residents without a budget for renewing old infrastructure. It was therefore decided to provide them with an incentive, as long as they meet the target of 2,500 building permits in three years. The ministry hopes that some 30,000 new apartments will thereby become available in high-demand areas. The ministry said that the budget for the current year was NIS 440 million, and that the total amount spent on the plan would reach NIS 750 million.
Eleven cities are in the program, according to the Ministry of Housing and Construction: Jerusalem, Lod, Bat Yam, Kiryat Ono, Haifa, Netanya, Givatayim, Ramat Gan, Ashdod, Hadera, and Kiryat Yam. Some city municipalities said, however, that they had not yet finalized agreements with the ministry.
