Tel Aviv's regional planning council is pushing to approve the construction of a 64-story building in Givatayim, containing only long-term rental apartments, with no option to purchase.
The plan includes 500 relatively small studio and one and two-bedroom apartments. The small size of the apartments is a deliberate move to provide more supply to the demand of young couples who cannot afford larger living spaces.
According to the plan, the building would be constructed in Givatayim, right near the border of Tel Aviv, and will be located near the Savidor Center train station.
This is the first time such a building will be built, as the dominant method of building in recent years has relied on relatively large apartments that are designed to be sold and not rented. The proposed 500 apartments, however, are purposely designed to fit the needs of young couples and relatively older people, who might not need as much space as families with children.
The plan puts emphasis on the interaction between the residential tower and the urban space in which it will reside, including an expansion of the sidewalks around it. This plan should help create a more comfortable and efficient walking environment near the train station.
"The creation of the Tel Aviv Metropolitan, alongside the transportation infrastructure, in the heart of Gush Dan, allows expansion of the supply of long-term rental apartments as an alternative for purchasing an apartment," according to Tel Aviv Regional Planning Council chairman Eran Nitzan.
"The real estate market must evolve with long-term rental apartments that will compete for the quality of life, level of services and efficiency," the council's regional city planner Erez Ben-Eliezer said.
This type of project, which includes hundreds of apartments, is part of the change of direction in the real estate market, and its location will provide its residents with plenty of services within walking distance," he added.
"the real estate market must evolve with long-term rental apartments that will compete for the quality of life, level of services and efficiency."
Erez Ben-Eliezer
Housing costs haunt Israel's youth
Israel's real estate market has been a painful subject for many young people, as the housing prices, and rent prices in particular have been on the rise for the last 15 years, provoking numerous protests, including the widespread 2011 social justice protests, which were sparked by rising rent prices in Tel Aviv.
Tel Aviv housing in particular is extremely expensive, with economists from the USB bank saying that the real estate market there jumped by 18% between the second half of 2021 and the first half of 2022.
Some experts claim that one of the main problems with the Israeli real estate market is the lack of one and two bedroom apartments. Because most of the recent apartments built in Israel were designed to house families with children, they were built with three or four bedrooms, creating a shortage of affordable living spaces for those living alone or without large families.