Is it potential to renovate tens of hundreds of housing items in Israel in buildings which might be largely dilapidated, deserted, and uninhabitable? The Haifa Municipality is selling a first-of-its-kind coverage doc to scale back the variety of deserted buildings within the metropolis. A survey carried out revealed that there are some 700 deserted buildings in Haifa, which wastes land sources, scars the city cloth, the housing market, and prices the municipality NIS 33 million yearly in misplaced taxes.
In November 2024, the Nationwide Financial Council carried out a research on buildings which might be unfit to be used, together with residential buildings. It discovered an estimated 2.5 million sq. meters in Israel which might be outlined as unfit to be used, a lot of the buildings in areas of demand.
Exemption from municipal taxes encourages homeowners to not act
The Nationwide Financial Council really useful selling laws that might, require property homeowners to pay municipal taxes, initially partially, after which in full – in accordance with their classification, after three years by which the buildings can be exempted. All this within the hope that their homeowners will work to renovate and use them.
The Haifa Municipality estimates that there are 700 deserted buildings within the metropolis, and that they price the municipality NIS 33 million yearly in misplaced tax revenues. That is in accordance with data that can be revealed on the Future Plans for Haifa and the North convention to be held this week in Haifa.
In keeping with Vitali Dubov Dotan, head of Haifa Municipality’s deserted buildings unit, the explanations for the abandonment of the buildings are many and vary from giant renovation prices, disputes between heirs and buildings in unsought-after areas. Added to all that is the exemption from municipal taxes, which inspires homeowners to not act.
Following the conclusions of the Nationwide Financial Council’s report, the municipality determined to advertise its first coverage doc, which can cope with decreasing the variety of deserted buildings within the metropolis. The municipality will contact property homeowners, and encourage them to make use of them, to help in selling plans or constructing permits, and maybe join them with entities that might be occupied with buying or renting the properties, and offering loans for renovation.
Dubov-Dotan says that when he contacts property homeowners, he receives all kinds of responses. “Relating to a big constructing owned by an organization or company, there may be already skilled and enterprise means to maneuver issues alongside. Relating to personal residence homeowners, they’re suspicious and ask me what they might be given in return. After all, they weren’t given monetary compensation, however skilled steering.” Nonetheless, the center of the issue lies, in his opinion, in the truth that there may be at the moment no actual lever of strain, so long as the homeowners of deserted buildings are exempt from municipal taxes.
Dan Kaczynski, CEO of the Actual Property Middle, which organizes the Haifa and North Future Plans Convention, says, “Haifa is a pioneer in coping with deserted buildings and the primary to determine a regulated native mechanism for the systematic therapy of this advanced phenomenon, and it might function a mannequin for different cities to comply with within the coming years.”
Revealed by Globes, Israel enterprise information – en.globes.co.il – on July 1, 2025.
© Copyright of Globes Writer Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2025.
