Weekly Update 102

September 11, 2026

Hello, everyone,

Three topics in this week’s newsletter. First is an alarming report!! Second, detailed information from a residents’ meeting held this week regarding the planned construction of public buildings on the dirt lot adjacent to the Country Club. Third, an update on a success—but once again, there are question marks.

I apologize in advance that even after editing, this newsletter is long—because there are so many topics. The council head is charging ahead with construction, and the public needs information. Take the time to read and dig into the details, and share this with your friends.

1. Plans for mega-construction projects in the busiest areas have been submitted to the Regional Planning and Construction Committee: the Dorot plan is back, massive construction on Nili Street, and the new neighborhood in the winery complex 
2. Report from the residents’ meeting on the mega-project for public buildings in the Country Club complex.
3. Update: Lange Complex Agreement: The contract has been submitted—the question marks are mounting
4. The newsletter will take a holiday break; I’ll resume reporting to you on Friday after the next council meeting, scheduled for October 6. Happy New Year to you and your loved ones. 🍎🍯

1 🏗️⚠️. Plans for mega-construction projects in the busiest areas have been submitted to the Regional Planning and Construction Committee

For some time now, I have been warning about the acceleration of construction in Zichron Ya’akov—without transparency, without in-depth public debate, and without the involvement of council members.

This coming Wednesday, September 16, 2026, the Regional Planning and Construction Committee will convene. On its agenda are plans with a dramatic and far-reaching impact on the character of the town and the quality of life for all of us. Agenda for the meeting. I have provided links to the specific page for each topic to be discussed.

1️⃣ The Dorot Plan (by the ultra-Orthodox MALAT Association) is back on the table 📑⚖️ p. 2

The council’s request that the Regional Committee act as the developer for the Dorot Plan is being brought up for discussion and approval. (The request notes that discussions on the matter are ongoing.) The letter is signed by the council engineer but is not co-signed by the council’s legal advisor, the council treasurer, or the council secretary. Only the mayor has co-signed it.

 

2️⃣ The eastern neighborhood in the winery complex: high-rises in the heart of a preservation district 🏭🏢

A massive plan with reality-altering implications. (Page 87 of the agenda) It includes a series of alarming facts:

• 📈 A sharp increase in the number of housing units: The plan includes 350 housing units, contrary to what was previously presented in public notices (which stated only about 200 housing units).
• 🏛️ Damage to preservation: Promoting residential construction right within an area designated as a preservation zone.
• 🚗 Reduction of public spaces: Narrowing the public road right-of-way and transferring the land to the developer to increase the volume of private construction (similar to the precedent set on Kibbutz Galuyot Street).
• 🏙️ Excessive density of 33 housing units per dunam: By comparison, in the Halomot neighborhood, the density stands at 14 housing units per dunam. Implications of this figure: The construction of high-rise towers that are incompatible with the character of the colony.

3️⃣ Massive demolition-and-reconstruction project at 47 Nili Boulevard: in the heart of the historic colony 📐🏙️

The developer has submitted a request for exceptional doubling of floor area and increased density (page 11 of the agenda)

• 📏 Height and number of stories: A jump from the existing 3 stories to 5 stories + one basement level. Requested building height: 20 meters!
• 🏠 Number of residential units: From 7 existing units to 18 units.
• 🔄 Zoning change: Change from Residential Zone B to Residential Zone C.
• 🏗️ Gross floor area: Increase from the existing 808 square meters to 2,800 square meters of above-ground floor area + 1,100 square meters of underground space.
• ⚠️ Planning Implications: The lot is located in a conservation zone (Zone 3) according to the master plan, which requires a special detailed plan for building regulations, architectural design, and building lines.

📌 Although the plan was removed from the agenda at the last minute for further review, the very fact that it was submitted indicates the development direction being promoted behind the scenes.

📢 The power is in your hands—a call to civic action! 👥📣

As a council member from the opposition faction, all I can do is disclose the data, present the accurate planning and legal picture, and issue real-time warnings.

However, stopping moves like this requires broad and clear public pressure from you and from all city council members.

📞 What can you do right now? Because the committee hearing is on Wednesday, and from there, things will move quickly.

1. Reach out today—by phone, text, or email—to all the council members you voted for or know (from both the coalition and the opposition), as well as to the council chair and vice chairs.
2. Present them with one clear demand: What do you intend to do to stop this rampant construction and preserve the character of the historic town?

Only a united and caring community can ensure the future of Zichron Ya’akov! 🌳🏡

🏗️ 2. Report from the residents’ meeting on the mega-project for public buildings in the Country Club complex

This past Sunday, a public information and consultation meeting was held at the “Beit Nir” hall, attended by the project architect and the council chair. At the meeting, a grandiose construction plan was presented, which the council head himself described as “the most expensive public project ever undertaken in Zichron Ya’akov.”

📐 Planning Overview: What Is Planned to Be Built?

*Photos I took from the presentation shown at the meeting:

Image 1: The Location

This is a sprawling complex with a total construction area of approximately 4,300 square meters, stretching from the last square in the HaTzimoret neighborhood to the Country Club fence, adjacent to the public open space between HaShita and Shira Streets and the homes in the upper part of the HaTizmoret neighborhood (Neve HaBaron).

The plan includes two main buildings and extensive landscaping:

🏛️ Cultural Center / Main Auditorium: A 450-seat hall, whose foyer will house a “Yad Labanim” memorial and a community memorial space for fallen soldiers.

🏢 Multipurpose Center (Day Center for Senior Citizens): A spacious complex featuring treatment rooms, activity classrooms, a dining room designed to double as an assembly hall, a kitchenette, a dedicated terrace, and more.

🌳 Public Space and Environmental Development: An open-air amphitheater, a café, a grove, as well as above-ground and underground parking.

Image 2: The planned complex

Image 3: 3D rendering of the planned complex

⚠️ Distorted Priorities: Between Commemoration and Well-being and a Megalomaniacal Hall

It is important to make this absolutely clear: No one disputes the importance and moral significance of two of these components—the “Yad Labanim” memorial and the memorial center, and the multipurpose center for senior residents, who currently number 4,500 people of retirement age.

These are genuine needs that should have been addressed in alternative locations that do not create severe transportation and parking problems from the outset (and such alternatives do indeed exist in the town).

In contrast, the question of whether a massive auditorium is necessary at this time is glaringly obvious: a municipality in the midst of a budget crisis does not build lavish venues: It makes no sense to build a new hall right next to an existing auditorium (“Beit Nir”) that stands empty for many days a year and will itself become a white elephant in the future.

💸 The Budget Mystery: 70 million NIS—from what source?

Construction costs: The council head estimated the project’s cost at 50 million NIS. However, experts in the field whom I consulted estimate the actual cost at at least 70 million NIS. The excavation for just the two levels of the underground parking garage alone is estimated at approximately 21 million NIS.

The Budget Paradox: Just last week, council members were told that there was no 1 million NIS in the budget for renovating sports facilities in the town, and at a previous meeting, it was claimed that there was a 1 million NIS budget shortfall for summer renovations at educational institutions. How can an authority that struggles to raise 1 million NIS for basic maintenance embark on a project costing tens of millions?

🏗️Ongoing maintenance costs: Public buildings of this scale require millions of shekels each year for operation, maintenance, energy, and security—budgets that will inevitably come at the expense of ongoing services for residents.

🔁 A Familiar Scenario: Lessons from “Park HaMoshava”

This course of action illustrates a pattern already seen during the same council chair’s previous term:

💰 Unfulfilled promises of external funding: In the Moshava Park project as well, it was claimed that funding would come from the JNF, the Beit El community, and the sale of properties. In reality, these entities bore only a tiny fraction of the cost, and the bulk of the burden fell on the council’s budget, leading to massive deficits (well-documented in the Ministry of the Interior’s reports).

💰The Cost of the Deficit: As a result of these ventures, the council was forced to take out massive loans totaling tens of millions of shekels, which for years paralyzed its ability to build roads, renovate schools, upgrade sports fields, and construct playgrounds.

🎉Last-minute projects before elections: Moshava Park was hastily inaugurated ahead of the 2013 elections, lacking public restrooms or a café, and with heavy maintenance costs.

Now, history is repeating itself: Vague promises along the lines of “We’ll get money from Social Security, the Ministry of Social Affairs, and donors”—without a concrete business plan, without guaranteed budgetary sources, and without an approved contingency budget (TABAR) allocation.

Imagine if you decided to build your dream home without first checking exactly how much money you have or where and how you’ll raise the funds. Would you say, “Let’s go ahead and submit the plans, start building, and try to raise the money later”?

Sounds crazy, right?? That’s exactly how the council head is behaving, and no one can change his mind. The coalition members who attended the meeting—cheering and rejoicing.

🚗 The Transportation and Parking Crisis: A Bottleneck in the Heart of Residential Neighborhoods

Extreme traffic congestion: The access route from Aharon Street to the HaChita School, the community center, and the country club is already congested and dangerous. Shira Street cannot be widened at all due to its location, sandwiched between the school and the agricultural farm.

Impact on the Tizmoret neighborhood: The existing parking lot at the end of the neighborhood (currently used by parents to drop off students and bypass traffic jams) will be demolished and absorbed into the project. Vehicles will not be allowed to pass beyond the Upper Square (Nevel Square), which will lead to massive traffic congestion spilling into the neighborhood’s quiet streets.

🅿️Unreasonable parking shortage: The project offers only 120 parking spaces (40 in the first underground level, 40 on the second level, and 40 above-ground spaces). For a complex that includes a 450-person hall, a day center, and country club activities, this is a serious planning failure.

“Solutions” Disconnected from Reality: It was explained that the number of parking spaces is sufficient because part of the complex operates in the morning and part in the evening—the hours do not overlap. In my opinion, they do overlap with other public buildings in the same area. The council head’s claim that residents “will get used to walking” (given the community’s steep topography) and that a walking and biking path from HaShita Street will be completed does not address the needs of the elderly, families, or those attending evening events. Residents are already driving to the country club to work out!! The idea proposed by a resident at the meeting regarding a shuttle system also entails heavy budgetary operating costs that have not been allocated.

⏳ Schedules, Environment, and Good Governance

🌳 Damage to Trees and Shade: The complex contains mature olive trees that, according to the council, will be transplanted or preserved. For the planned open-air amphitheater, no adequate shading solution has been specified other than “shading the structures from the outside,” which is insufficient given the local climate.

📅 Planned Timelines: Since there is no need to rezone the land, it is claimed that building permits will be expedited, with the intention of beginning construction in the first or second quarter of 2027. The estimated construction period is approximately 3 years, during which on-site parking will be almost completely unavailable, and severe traffic disruptions are expected.

🚨 Excluding the Public and Silencing Criticism: The meeting at Beit Nir was scheduled about a month in advance but was announced to the public only four days before it took place (and via a WhatsApp message on the day of the event itself), coinciding with parent-teacher conferences at elementary schools. The result: only about 50 participants attended, of whom about 10 were members of the council’s administration and elected officials. Residents at the meeting who dared to ask tough questions received an inappropriate response from the council head, who did everything in his power to silence substantive criticism.

📜✍️ 3. Update: Lange Complex Agreement: The Contract Has Been Released—Questions Mount

After nearly two months of a prolonged and uncompromising struggle on my part to obtain the text of the agreement signed on July 17 with great fanfare between the council and the Open University —a struggle that included appeals to the council chairman, the legal advisor, the Ministry of the Interior, and a Freedom of Information request I sent to the Open University—a copy of the agreement and its appendices was delivered to council members this week.

And then to discover that within the agreement, the Council’s legal representative had inserted a note: “The agreement is subject to the approval of the full Council and the Minister of the Interior.”

Which is exactly what I’ve been arguing all along.

However, the agreement has not yet been submitted to the full council for approval. And it’s clear it will likely be approved without any questions or in-depth scrutiny.

A few preliminary remarks based on what I’ve been able to understand:

1. Total dependence on the Israel Land Authority (ILA): The agreement has no practical validity without the consent of the landowner—the ILA. History shows that the ILA does not hand out free gifts, and the real concern is that, as a condition for the transfer of rights, significant planning concessions will be required (such as promoting high-density residential construction or extensive commercial areas, similar to the well-known struggle in the Zichrona neighborhood).
2. Limited lease term: The Open University’s rights to the land, which were transferred to the council, expire around the year 2045 (in less than 20 years). A serious question arises: Will the council invest millions of shekels in the restoration and development of the site, only to discover that in less than two decades the land will revert to the Israel Land Authority (ILA)? Or will the ILA agree in advance to extend the lease term?
3. Tax Exposure: The amount of capital gains tax and the scope of the financial obligations that will be imposed on the Council remain completely unanswered.

I need more time to delve into the contract and its appendices and to consult with professionals in the field (real estate, lease agreements—if any of you readers are experts in this area, I’d appreciate your help). Then I’ll present the main points to you.