'Secular-only' neighborhood planned in Kiryat Malachi
Following rabbi's ruling against Shabbat elevator, southern city's municipality planning multi-story buildings in bid to attract secular population
Mayor Moti Malka, the city engineer and the manager of the municipal infrastructure department visited the Tito Architects office in order to approve the plan for the new neighborhood, which will be named Rothner Estates.
The plan focuses on multi-story building with the hopes of attracting a secular population and avoiding an onrush of ultra-Orthodox families, following a recent ruling issued by Rabi Yosef Shalom Elyahiv that using Shabbat-designated elevators was a violation of religious laws pertaining to the holy day.
The new buildings are slated to be construction in the former Gibstein neighborhood, whose lands have been purchased by a new entrepreneur. The new neighborhood is expected to include 530 cottages, which will be mostly inhabited by Gush Katif evacuees) and about 2,800 apartments in a condominium complex.
The neighborhood will also include eight kindergartens, an elementary school, a high school, a youth cultural center, religious institutions, a commercial center, a park, a playground, a clinic and two daycare centers. An apartment in the project is expected to cost up to NIS 800,000 (about $211,860).
"After years of standing in one place, we have finally moved to the implementation stage," Malka said last week. "The neighborhood will attract populations both from the young residents of Kiryat Malachi and young couples from outside the city."
The marketing of housing units in the city's new military neighborhood will begin in about a year and a half. The project will include 400 houses and 900 apartments in a condominium complex. It will also have one high school, one elementary school, four kindergartens, two daycare centers and public buildings.
"The addition of all the neighborhoods being built today will bring a huge momentum to the city," the mayor noted.
According to Malka, the new neighborhoods will be built in high standards and will include 20 and 10-story buildings alongside villas and luxurious cottages. In addition, he said, each neighborhood will have community centers, schools and kindergartens, "all in prestigious architectural planning."
The mayor sounded pretty optimistic about changing his city's image. "Kiryat Malachi is going through a phase," he said. "Not only absorbing hard-working families, but also and mostly young people and strong families seeking to live in central Israel in a countryside atmosphere, in a high quality of life and for a cheaper price than in the Tel Aviv Metropolitan area.
Will the new Kiryat Malachi vision materialize? Malka is certain it will, and has linked between the new industrial park slated to offer new sources of employment and the construction momentum.
"We are creating a new city in which it is good to live," he concluded.
