Just after two earthquakes were felt in the north of the country at the beginning of last week, the Knesset Research Center submitted a report commissioned by MK Yisrael Eichler, that reveals shocking figures about the reinforcement of buildings against earthquakes and raises serious questions about the disastrous consequences should a major earthquake occur in Israel in the coming years.
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According to the report, which includes a comprehensive section on National Outline Plan 38, in all the communities that sit along the Jordan Rift Valley (the Syro-African Depression) from Eilat in the South to Kiryat Shmona in the North, only 70 buildings have been reinforced in the past five years. In Jerusalem which sits close by to the fault line, for example, only 1% of buildings where a request was issued for planning permission for reinforcement have actually received permission.
The Ministry of Housing and Construction estimates that in Israel there are some 80,000 buildings of three stories and more that require reinforcement containing some 810,000 apartments.
Moreover, according to the assessment of the inter-ministerial steering committee for preparation for earthquakes, in the event of a major earthquake, in addition to the loss of life, some 28,600 buildings could be destroyed or seriously damaged (damage amounting to at least 45% of the value of the building) and a further 292,000 buildings will suffer slight to moderate damage (damage amounting t 5% to 20% of the value of the building).
According to the inter-ministerial steering committee assessment, the number of buildings that require reinforcement in 10 towns in areas that sit in high-risk areas that could be affected by an earthquake stands at 1871 buildings containing 36,758 apartments that require reinforcement against earthquakes and safe rooms for defense against missiles. The cost of reinforcing and building safe rooms for these buildings is estimated at NIS 3.9 billion.
"This is a total failure," said MK Yisrael Eichler of the United Torah Judaism party who commissioned the Knesset Research Center report. "For years we at the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee sub-committee for home front defense have been talking about earthquakes and safe rooms but unbelievably simply nothing has been done."
The Knesset Research Committee report also deals with the percentage of buildings reinforced in the central region of the country versus those reinforced in communities in outlying areas. The results are hardly surprising.
According to the Knesset report, during the years that National Outline Plan 38 has been in place only 1.7% of the buildings that require reinforcement (1,337 buildings) have in fact been reinforced. Some 76% of the buildings that have been reinforced are in Tel Aviv and the central region and only 5% in the northern and southern districts.
As part of the National Outline Plan, which allows additional apartments to be added to buildings in exchange for reinforcement of the building and the addition of saferooms in all the building's apartments, an additional 13,124 apartments have been added to such buildings. On average, for each apartment that was reinforced as part of the National Outline Plan, another apartment was constructed. Some 80% of the apartments added were in high-demand areas – namely the Tel Aviv and central districts.
The average time it takes to carry out a project from submission of a request for planning permission until completion of the project has increased from two-and-a-half years in 2010 to more than seven years in 2020. Thus a program that was planned to provide a fast track has slowed down over the years.
In 2019, the government decided to suspend the program until 2022 because of its failure to advance the issue of reinforcing and strengthening buildings on the required scale and its failure to apply the program in the periphery where the need for reinforcement and strengthening of buildings is especially acute. The program also failed as a tool to create a more dense urban environment ("urban renewal") among other things, because of the absence of planning, and the absence of a response to the need for infrastructures and public buildings created by increased density.
In November 2020, the government passed "Decision 590" to establish a team to examine complementary tools to encourage reinforcement of residential buildings against earthquakes in high-risk areas and the periphery.
According to this decision, an inter-ministerial team headed by the Director-General of the Ministry of the Interior would recommend to the government complementary tools required to encourage the reinforcement of existing residential buildings constructed before 1980 in cases where National Outline Plan 38 and other mechanisms existing today have failed to provide a solution in high-risk areas for earthquakes.
However, the Knesset report raises questions about what has been titled the "Shaked alternative," which is supposed to replace National Outline Plan 38 and expressed doubts about the ability to implement the Shaked alternative in practice.
Absence of urban-planning considerations: The Shaked alternative proposes regulation about public designation of some residential buildings at a rate of 10 to 15% of the construction area existing on the lot depending on the track. Up to 10% of the total area is permitted for construction on the lot (beyond additional rights for residential construction). Submitting requests for planning permission on this track requires an opinion to be deposited by the local planning council engineer that the building should be prioritized for reinforcement rather than being demolished and rebuilt, taking into account, among other things, the state of the building, the lot it sits on and the surrounding environment, including architectural or historic importance. However, the proposed legislation does not list the planning or urban considerations in this regard.
Statutory planning or policy? The national authority for urban renewal does not advance overall plans for the entire jurisdiction of any particular local planning committee but it does promote various planning tools for certain neighborhoods in specific towns. The plan in question is the "construction renewal plan" for eight communities: Ashdod, Ramle, Yavne, Rishon Letzion, Kfar Saba, Haifa, and Nahariya. According to the authority, some 21,000 buildings have the potential for construction renewal within the framework of this plan. The Knesset report notes that it is unclear whether these plans are statutory plans or policy plans, nor how the construction renewal plan integrates within the overall framework of urban renewal.
The question of betterment tax: Concerning betterment tax, the question arises, what is the point in determining a uniform rate of exemption for betterment tax in all plans in all towns? While in some cases the rate of betterment tax increases brackets (for example, in comparison to the full exemption granted by National Outline Plan 38) the tax is still low when compared to betterment tax on other assets. What are the effects of this on the ability of local councils to provide the required budgets for increasing urban density in the framework of these plans? Does the proposed rate of betterment tax enable proper budgeting for development?
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An additional question that arises from the report about betterment tax is why in the description and analysis of National Outline Plan 38 and the plans proposed to replace it, local authorities have not received the authority to determine the rate of betterment tax based on various parameters concerning the value of land and the development requirements in the area of the project.
Another issue the Knesset Research Committee report looks at looks is the reinforcement and strengthening of buildings in the communities of the Gaza envelope. The report reveals that in the years 2008 to 2017, homes in 42 communities in the Gaza envelope were strengthened within the framework of this project. Some 10,700 safe rooms were built with state funding at a total cost of NIS 1.7 billion.
From 2019 to 2022, the state allocated NIS 354 million to strengthen homes near the northern border (communities located up to a kilometer from the border) and a further NIS 35 million was allocated to reinforcement and strengthening of public housing.
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