The Jewish National Fund (JNF) (Keren Kayemeth le-Israel) will be forced together with the Greek Orthodox Church to pay betterment levies of hundreds of millions of shekels on the Patriarchate's land in Jerusalem. The imposition of the levies follows a decision on the matter by the Jerusalem District Planning and Building Appeals Committee.
The amount of the levies that the JNF must pay will be decided by an appraiser appointed by the committee. The decision will regulate the rate of participation of property tenants in betterment levies imposed by law on property owners.
The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate owns 520 dunams (130 acres) of land in Jerusalem, in some of the most expensive areas of the city including Talbieh, Rehavia and Nayot. Most of land is built on and includes over 100 apartments as well as public institutions, offices and hotels.
In 2016, the land was sold to a group of investors called Nayot, which in 2023 sold it on to Extell, controlled by American Jewish real estate businessman Gary Barnett.
Over the years, the Jerusalem Local Planning and Construction Committee approved various plans that enhanced the properties and increased their value. Since most of these plans were when the owner of the land was the Greek Patriarchate, the Jerusalem Municipality submitted to the Patriarch a number of payment demands for plans, some of which were approved as long as 30 years ago.
One such plan was a complex near the Liberty Bell Garden complex, which rezoned land from an open public area to a special commercial area. For this, the Patriarchate was asked to pay a betterment levy of NIS 357,000.
"An irregular situation for the State of Israel"
The Patriarchate filed an appeal against the levy through Advs. Benjamin Zalmanovich and Ariel Kamenkovich who claimed that because the land was leased in 1951 by JNF-KKL for 99 years that the levy should be imposed on JNF-KKL and not the Patriarchate.
The Jerusalem Local Planning and Construction Appeals Committee, represented by Advs. Hila Sirota and Tamar Einy claim that the Patriarchate did benefit from the land improvement.
JNF-KKL, represented by Advs. Tamar Migdal and Avraham Yurkevich argued that if the levies are imposed, "It would be an absurd situation that those who did not realize these lands would be required to pay — something that goes against the guiding principles of the betterment levy.
The Jerusalem Local Planning and Construction Appeals Committee headed by Adv. Amit Afik wrote in response, "In the appeal, an irregular situation arises for the State of Israel where, as is known, most of the land is owned by the state and it is leased to private individuals. It is this irregular situation that creates the difficulty in locating the person liable for the betterment levy."
However, the committee did not accept the parties' (JNF-KKL and the Patriarchate) position, according to which only the other party should pay the levy payment, and it appointed an advisory appraiser to determine what the improvement levy should be and the ratio between the value of the lease rights on the land and the value of the ownership rights.