For the first time in history, the Jerusalem municipal planning and construction committee is slated to review plans to build 150 homes in the Beit Hanina neighborhood of east Jerusalem, half of which will be earmarked for Jewish homeowners and the other half for Arabs, Israel Hayom has learned.
Currently, seven Jewish couples and five unmarried individuals live in Beit Hanina. To date, no housing project of this size has been approved for Jewish housing in Beit Hanina. In fact, no plans for major Jewish housing in Beit Hanina have ever even been submitted for review.
The review is a critical stage preceding the anticipated construction of 75 homes intended to house Jews, located close to the Jewish neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo and close to public transportation into the city.
The land on which the housing units are planned to go up was purchased by the late Meir Ezri, former Israeli Ambassador to Iran, in 1973. Over time, however, Arab residents moved onto the land and built on it without permits.
In 2012, legal proceedings initiated by Aryeh King, chairman of the United faction in the Jerusalem city council, ended with the Arab squatters being evacuated from four apartments that were built without permits. A group of young Jews moved in.
Once the plans for the 150 new homes are approved, as they are expected to be, the public will have 45 days in which to file objections. If that stage passes smoothly, the plans will be submitted for approval to the district planning committee. According to the projected timeline, construction tenders for the housing units will be issued early in 2019.
The land encompasses some 11 dunams (2.7 acres). The plans call for the construction of eight apartment buildings comprising seven to 12 stories each.
