Minister of Transport Miri Regev has requested a review of the plans for the Metro underground railway system in Gush Dan, apparently at the behest of local authority heads in Judea and Samaria. Besides the possible delays to the project, her request already has significant consequences: a general freeze on approvals of building plans in the highest demand areas of Gush Dan.
The Metro project is being advanced through several plans: National Infrastructures Plan (NIP) 103, for the semi-circular M3 line has been approved by the government; NIP 102, for the east-west M2 line, has also been approved by the government; and NIP 101, for the longitudinal north-south M1 line has been split into three separate plans – the southern and middle sections have been approved by the government, with the line’s northern section still awaiting approval.
After a series of discussions, stretching over years, the National Infrastructures Committee decided on Kfar Sava as the location for the Metro depot, despite the objections of the municipality and the recommendations of the investigator of the objections. In the committee’s decision, it was stipulated that, in order not to hold back planning of the system, an additional plan would be drawn up to examine a transport link between the end of the line and the eastern rail line to be constructed between Hadera and Lod, along the route of the Road 6 highway, in order to connect to the east of the country and the Samaria region.
Another plan awaiting approval is National Outline Plan 70, which is meant to regulate the density of construction around the Metro stations, and to delineate the “areas of influence” of the stations on nearby real estate, for the purposes of the tax that will be an element of the financing of the project.
National Outline Plan 70 was due to be discussed and approved by the government today, but it cannot be approved before all the plans for the lines receive statutory approval. Following Regev’s objection and her demand that the government should discuss the plan presented by the planning institutions, approval of the line has been deferred, and the National Outline Plan will not be raised for discussion.
The problem is a transitional provision in the Metro Law that states that, since March, construction plans in the surroundings of the Metro stations cannot be approved unless the National Outline Plan is approved or rules have been drawn up by the relevant ministers. No rules have been drawn up, because the assumption was that the National Outline Plan would be approved today, and this cannot now be done, so that we are left without rules and without an approved National Outline Plan. With no date set in the near future by which the legal aspect will be settled, sources in the real estate industry say that plans cannot be approved at all.
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In a letter to cabinet secretary Yossi Fuchs last week, Regev requested a discussion of the plan “in the light of the significant planning and transportation opportunities that lie in extending the route of the line to the Eyal intersection. The current decision, that places the depot on sensitive agricultural land, ignores a preferable alternative that enjoys wide support.” According to Regev extending the line will create “a transportation interface between the Metro system and the eastern rail line, and will dramatically improve connections between the north of the country, Samaria, and the center.” Regev believes that “the decision should be reviewed, taking into account the national and regional advantages of the Eyal intersection alternative.”
The National Infrastructures Committee discussed extending the line at length, and found that there was a benefit to connecting the Metro to the eastern rail line, but in order not to delay approval and execution of the plan, it was decided to leave the plan for the Metro line as it was, so that it would terminate in the Sharon, and not in Samaria, and that possibilities for extending the line would be discussed later on.
There is a consensus among the local authority heads in the Sharon, who do not want the depot in their jurisdictions, and the local authority heads in Samaria, who wish to benefit from the Metro system. The heads of the Kfar Sava municipality, the Samaria Regional Council, the Tira local authority wrote to Regev at the beginning of last week stating that “extending the line to the Eyal intersection, as we have proposed, is a historic opportunity on which the local authority heads in the Sharon and Samaria agree for a genuine, accessible connection between the north, Samaria, and the center… this is a historic opportunity to connect Samaria to the center.”
Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on April 27, 2025.
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