Weekly Update 73

February 6, 2026

Hello everyone,

Last Tuesday, a plenary council meeting was held, during which many topics were discussed; some of which I will present in this newsletter, while others will be covered in the next one.

First topic: A few brief reports from the council chairman:

• Relief for residents of Givat Eden, Villas in the Woods, and the northern neighborhoods—as reported by the Council Chairman. According to him, there has been a decrease in the number of shooting incidents and the sound of the muezzin from Pardes. I hope the residents there are indeed experiencing what was told to us at the meeting. The Council Chairman explained that every week, he, the Chairman of the Pardes Council, and the new police station commander, Deputy Chief Superintendent Dudu Atias, hold a joint meeting to ensure a reduction in violence in our area.
• Municipal Policing: Deputy Chief Superintendent Dudu Atias also spoke at the meeting and reported that the police have managed to fill nearly all the positions for officers who will be part of the municipal policing unit currently being established. He explained that excellent officers were selected for the role and praised the important cooperation with the council.
• An important step in caring for our cleanliness and beautiful environment: The council’s environmental inspector can now conduct investigations and even impose heavy fines for environmental violations. Such as dumping construction waste, failure to remove asbestos, and cutting down trees without a permit.

I remind you that any resident can call the 106 hotline to report environmental violations. Only then will the inspector know where to go and how to address the issue. So please help us protect the environment.

Second topic: Continued halt to the Zichrona neighborhood

Reminder: A neighborhood called Zichrona is planned for the area in front of Moshava High School up to Gan Yaron Amiti. This is a massive neighborhood that will house 15,000 new residents in approximately 1,230 apartments, plus about 250 units of senior housing, and limited commercial space. Most of the land belongs to the Israel Land Authority, which is promoting the neighborhood, and 40% of the land is privately owned. According to the ILA’s plan, the only exit from this massive neighborhood will be via Maof HaTzipor Square/the entrance to Halomot from the side of Moshava High School, and from the square toward Beit El Industries near Rotari Square. A square that is already congested in the mornings. So imagine another 1,200 vehicles passing through it!!

The developers who purchased land in the Zichrona neighborhood filed a lawsuit this week against the Israel Land Authority, seeking a refund of their money plus compensation. They claim that the ILA sold them land that is unsuitable for construction because the local authority refuses to develop the neighborhood due to the current massive gap in development funds and in accordance with the zoning plan regulations. See this article—

https://www.calcalist.co.il/real-estate/article/rjn5f6n8wl

I would like to remind you that the previous council head, Ziv Deshe, returned the betterment funds—totaling 54 million NIS—that had been transferred to the council to the Israel Land Authority at the time. He argued that the council had no ability to utilize this sum, which is earmarked solely for the neighborhood’s development and what is required to establish the neighborhood—roads, including widening part of the access road to Zichron Ya’acov from the Shfaya side to two lanes in each direction, a separate exit road from this neighborhood directly to the road to Yokneam, kindergartens, a school, infrastructure, public spaces, public buildings, and more. In the lawsuit filed at the time against the council, the court accepted the council’s position that the neighborhood cannot be developed now but only within ten years of the zoning plan’s approval. Today, we are already within the seven-year window.

I was very pleased to hear the current council head report on this lawsuit at the last meeting and state that the council refuses to establish Zichrona under the current circumstances because if Zichrona is established, there will be no memory.

Longtime readers of this newsletter will recall that I have written about this issue several times and warned against building the neighborhood at this time. Our collective position must be that the neighborhood will be built only after all roads are paved, public spaces capable of accommodating such a large number of residents are secured, and the development costs do not fall on the public purse.

Third Issue: The Mega Demolition-Reconstruction Project at the Corner of HaTirosh and Marvad HaKsamim Streets

In the previous newsletter, I wrote about this project, on which we were required to vote at this week’s council meeting. However, the council chair acted with a lack of transparency and proper governance and failed to ensure that we received, in a timely manner, the agenda or even a single document related to the matter (site plan, construction plan, plan regulations, etc.).Council members are not rubber stamps, and certainly not the opposition members. And it turns out there is a lot of material on the subject that no one bothered to send to the council members before the meeting so we could prepare for it as required.

Therefore, at Tuesday’s meeting, the plan was “presented” to us. And the vote on it was postponed to the next meeting. I write “presented” because it was a staged show of supposed council member involvement—those who arrived included: the developers’ representative for the project, Tzachi Barco, a resident of Zichron Yaakov; the developer’s planner; and the council engineer, just before she retires. Residents of the homes on HaTirosh Street also arrived. But we were not presented with the residents’ official representatives, nor with the attorney representing the residents. Why?

In practice, the council members did not have time to study the material and prepare for the discussion; there is a great deal of material to study because this is a mega-project involving 135 units plus vast commercial areas in a small plot of land—a project that will change the face of the Neve Sharett neighborhood and will also have a significant impact on the adjacent Halomot neighborhood, as traffic congestion will shift there. And clearly, we are all in favor of demolition and reconstruction; clearly, we are all in favor of improving the tenants’ difficult housing conditions. However, I hope it is clear to all of us that such a process must be orderly and transparent to all council members and the public. And the process is far from transparent. Important materials and information were not provided to us. And it seems that there is more hidden than revealed….

I will detail here only the main points that are missing. The document attached to this email includes a more extensive breakdown and contains the diagrams. So anyone who wants more details is invited to open the file.

• Developers – Why are the developers’ names not listed in the project’s plan publication and plan regulations? Why is only the council mentioned as the developer? The project has a private developer, and the council head stated that Ram”i holds rights to the Clalit Health Services building where the plan permits the construction of 37 housing units.
• The plan presents a cluster of three dense buildings by the private developer, plus two additional buildings: a residential structure on the Clalit Health Services site and another multi-story building for commercial and office spaces.
• No traffic and parking appendix was presented or provided to us, as required for any plan. The plan would result in hundreds of cars at a central intersection in the neighborhood (Marvad HaKsamim Square), traffic that would also affect the adjacent Halomot neighborhood. And all this without any road widening (which was not presented to us).
• No mention was made of the position of the Urban Renewal Authority, which must approve any project of this kind, nor of the position of the Israel Land Authority (Rami), which owns most of the land on which the mega-project will be built.

The council head spoke for most of the meeting, repeatedly harping on certain narratives and half-truths, and he decided who would ask what questions. He didn’t let me ask the planner a single question. He simply silenced me!! Throughout the meeting, Abutbul repeated several statements that are factually incorrect. And they turned the entire meeting into a pointless charade.

Council Head 1: It’s just two buildings

The truth: Indeed, the evacuation and demolition will involve two buildings comprising a total of 28 units, but what matters most is what the proposed construction will include—five buildings (residential and, in the future, an office building). Please see the file attached to this email.

Council Chair 2: I just took and advanced the plan from Ziv Deshe’s time. Here, look at the meeting summaries of Ziv Deshe with the tenants. It’s exactly the same plan, and I just added another 200 square meters of public space funded by the contractor. I fought for this building.

The truth: This is not the same plan. If you take the time to sit down and study it in depth, you’ll understand it’s not the same plan. According to the summaries presented to us from Ziv Deshe’s time, it involved only three buildings with a central plaza.

Seriously, thanks to the developer who’s willing to build 200 square meters of public space on the ground floor of one of the 10-story buildings he’s planning. And he even inflated the numbers and claimed it’s worth 5 million NIS?? 200 square meters compared to the massive commercial space the developer is building at the front of each building.

Another fact: if having public space is so important, then there is a public hall of about 120 square meters nearby on HaPdot Street, which is intentionally separated from the synagogue located above it. Because it is intended for public activities such as education and social services. So why does it appear that it was handed over to the synagogue committee to build a kitchen and turn it into a revenue-generating event hall? Why give up valuable public space that could be used for educational or social welfare activities?

In the next newsletter, I will elaborate on this affair, which centers on the misappropriation of public space.

Council Head 3: The council isn’t a party to this; it’s private land and land owned by the Israel Land Authority. Let them figure it out.

The Truth: Construction is always a matter for the council. The council is involved even in the construction of a single house or a few units, and certainly in a massive project of 135 apartments on paper—and who knows how many more it will eventually become. It is a fact that both the previous and current council heads have held numerous meetings with residents and developers regarding this project.

If construction development isn’t the council’s concern, then there’s no need for a council.

Council Head 4: Here, I’ve brought the planner so you can ask any questions about the plan.

The truth is: Only after the New Contract party requested it did they receive the materials two days before the meeting; Avigayil Dolev and I received them the evening before the meeting—how are we supposed to have time to review them and know what to ask? We are working people who need at least a week to consult with experts as well. Especially since the council chair forbade the department heads from responding to me. I would be grateful if any of the newsletter’s readers who are professionals would volunteer to help me.

The council head prevented me from asking the planner any questions. I couldn’t ask her a single question!!! And as you’ll see in the document I’ve attached, I have many important questions. Why prevent a council member from asking questions, contrary to the municipal ordinance which states that every council member is entitled to discuss and ask questions about any agenda item for at least 10 minutes?

In summary: On Tuesday, we witnessed a facade of public participation and a facade of council members who are supposedly able to ask questions and scrutinize. In reality, the council chair speaks constantly and silences whoever he wants. When coalition members do open their mouths, they attack me. Yes, it’s Tzachi Baruch again, claiming I could come and request to see the materials whenever I want. He ignores the fact that I’m being boycotted—they don’t respond to any of my inquiries, and they refuse to show me materials they’re legally required to disclose. And the legal advisor remains silent in the face of this open boycott and withholding of information.

And for those who think I’m exaggerating, I suggest reading the State Comptroller’s reports on the construction of the Halomot neighborhood under the same council head during previous terms. How the number of apartments in the neighborhood grew to 750, why Abutbul approved the relocation of power lines using council funds. And instead of the developer paying for it, we paid. And so on and so forth. Unfortunately, history may repeat itself—and even worse.

If you’ve read this far, it means the fate of our community matters to you, and you believe, as I do, that bad things are happening in Zichron Yaakov, particularly regarding real estate. Each and every one of us may find ourselves facing massive construction next to our homes by a developer who receives excessive privileges from the council. Not to mention the state of the entire community, which is already stuck in traffic jams and has infrastructure that can’t handle the load.

I spend hours writing each newsletter in order to share this information with as many people as possible. Because this information must be available to all residents. Please add more friends to the mailing list. Make an effort to send me the names and email addresses of as many people as possible.