Скачать или смотреть Municipality approves project to build over 2,000 homes for Arabs

(8 Sep 2014) Jerusalem's municipality has approved a large-scale housing project in an Arab neighbourhood in east Jerusalem, a plan it hopes will address longstanding issues over construction in these areas.
The municipality approved a master plan for the neighbourhood of Arab al-Sawahira in the city's southeast last week, promising to build more than 2,000 housing units, along with employment centres, public buildings, schools, new roads and parks.
It says the plan, which would develop a huge plot of land that now stands largely empty, is meant to reign in wildcat construction by Arab residents.
David Koren, adviser to Jerusalem's mayor on east Jerusalem, said it was the first master plan to be passed at the municipal level since 1967 and that plans for other neighbourhoods were in the pipeline.
The municipality says a planned and orderly neighbourhood with a proper road network would help it provide the communities with better services.
It blames the chaotic building in east Jerusalem for the lack of public services, saying that structures were illegally built on areas meant as public spaces or that owners of those structures were not paying taxes.
The city's Arab population has for years complained that they face discriminatory housing and planning policies that favour Jews.
Residents who own land in the area, an arid swath that abuts Israel's West Bank separation barrier, say they are exhausted by a dozen years of legal proceedings meant to secure building permits.
They say they are jaded from seeing Jewish neighbourhoods sprout up nearby and are sceptical that the housing plan will actually lead to a sprawling Arab neighbourhood.
Critics say the plan, which some concede is a positive step, is only conceptual and does not allow for residents to apply for building permits, in contrast to other planning schemes elsewhere in the city.
Daniel Seidemann, an expert on Jerusalem, described the plan as "all smoke and mirrors".

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