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NEWS UPDATE
On
Behalf of
the Members of the Elected Local Council in Sandalah, Adalah Submits
Objection to
the Master Plan for the Village in the North of
On 25 December 2007,
Adalah submitted
an objection to the Regional Planning and Building Committee – Northern
District to Master Plan 14664/C for the Arab village of Sandalah on
behalf of members
of the local village council. The objection was written by Adalah’s
Urban and Regional
Planner, Hana Hamdan, and Adalah Attorney Suhad Bishara. The objectors
argued, inter
alia, that the plan, which was submitted in October 2007,
ignores the
wishes of residents of Sandalah regarding the village’s future
development and
the immediate environment in which they live, thereby disregarding
their right
to chose to continue to live in an agricultural-rural setting, and
harming
their quality of life. Adalah demanded the redrafting of the master
plan in a
way that will maintain the agricultural nature of the village, allow
for its
economic development, and reflect the vision of its inhabitants of the
future
of their community.
Sandalah is an
agricultural-rural village located in the north of
The objectors seek the
revision
of the plan in a manner that will protect the rural nature of the
village,
enable suitable economic development for its inhabitants, facilitate
the agricultural
usage of the land without unreasonable restrictions, and respond to the
wishes
and needs of the village’s residents. The objectors also demanded that
the
revised planning process should be undertaken with the appropriate and
genuine participation
of village representatives. The objectors further demanded that the
plan should
earmark land for an employment zone in Sandalah to allow the transferal
of all existing
businesses away from residential neighborhoods, thereby enabling
economic
development without lowering the quality of life of the village’s
residents.
Under Plan 14664/C,
the total
amount of open public land allocated for the residents of Sandalah,
whose
population is projected to reach 2,800 in the target year of the plan
of 2022,
is 18.35 dunams, or 6.5m2 per person. In
comparison, the master plan
for the neighboring Jewish community of Gan Ner (with a population
currently
numbering 2,699) allocated 56.5 m2 of open
public land per person, a
massive 8.7 times the amount of land allowed for each person living in
Sandalah.
In addition, the master plan for Sandalah allots a total of just 19.6
dunams
for public and sports facilities, which is extremely small,
particularly when compared
with the equivalent allocation of land in Gan Ner, which is 166 dunams.
The objectors argued
that these
figures demonstrate “that the planning system operates as two systems –
one
planning system for Jewish communities, which works to enhance the
quality of
life of the residents, and another system for the Arab communities,
which fails
to provide a minimal amount of land for public services.”
In addition, the
objectors
argued, the scenario and directives of the proposed plan do not enable
a living
environment that is suited to the lifestyle of the residents of
Sandalah and do
not respond to their needs as a rural community. For example, the plan
stipulates a building density of four housing units per dunam and
maximal building
height in some parts of the village of four stories plus a basement
level,
which in a rural community will result in overcrowding and a low
quality of
life.
Among the other
features of the
plan which render it inappropriate for the villagers are the many
restrictions it
contains, which unreasonably limit the agricultural use of lands
earmarked for
agriculture. For example, the plan stipulates that the construction of
agricultural structures will require the approval of the Ministries of
Agriculture and Environmental Protection. The plan further imposes as a
condition for building an “agricultural shelter” that an “opinion from
the
Ministry of Agriculture on whether the desired use is compatible with
agricultural activity, that the person seeking the permit is indeed a
farmer
and that the shelter is required for agricultural activity conducted on
the
plot of land” must be obtained.
As the objectors
argued, these permits
and opinions would require the landowners and farmers in the area to
enter into
long and exhausting bureaucratic processes, emphasizing that the issue
of
building agricultural or other structures is a matter of planning and
building,
and that there is no justification for conditioning such issues on
approvals
from the government. These conditions are therefore unreasonable and
represent an
obstacle that violates the basic constitutional right to freedom of
occupation
and harms the livelihoods of farmers living in Sandalah.
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