Can Planning Help in Time of Crisis?: Planners' Responses to Israel's Recent Wave of Mass Immigration

Patterns of development and conservation in agricultural lands—The case of the Tel Aviv metropolitan region 1990–2000

“…Immigration waves from the former USSR that started arriving at Israel in 1989, increasing the total population by 20% within 5 years, created an urgent need to supply adequate housing for the unanticipated masses. This brought about changes in planning and land policies in several ways, including national statutory planning, government decisions and planning legislation (Alterman, 1995;Feitelson, 1999;Schiffman, 1999). The most prominent statutory planning tool in this regard was the National Outline Plan for Building, Development and Immigration Absorption NOP 31, initiated by the planning system in 1990 and ratified in 1993, which was the first national plan to actually divert from the former traditional population dispersal policy.…”

“…In an effort to facilitate planning processes and enlarge the housing supply within a short period of time, the government passed the Planning and Building Procedures (Interim) Law in 1990, more commonly known as the HCCs law (Alterman, 1995). HCCs were special district Housing Construction Commissions, created by the new law in order to promote and approve large housing plans (of 200 dwelling units or more) and extensions of industrial areas.…”

The effectiveness of the protection of riparian landscapes in Israel

“…In addition, since its independence in 1948, Israel has been facing enormous challenges more than any other developed state, including an unstable geopolitical situation and recurrent wars, absorption of mass immigration waves and serious social conflicts (Alterman, 1995;Fletcher, 2000;Vogel, 1999). Nevertheless, all this still does not explain why former protection frameworks have not been reconstructed in spite of the advances in environmental management and administration in general.…”

“…The first of the two was the Combined National Outline Plan for Construction, Development and Immigration Absorption NOP 31. It was prepared and approved in the early 1990s, when Israel was facing a crisis stemming from an unanticipated increase in population due to mass immigration waves from the former USSR (Alterman, 1995). NOP 31 was the first comprehensive national statutory plan to incorporate environmental considerations on a large scale, stating objectives like: conservation of nature and landscape resources, preservation of surface water quality, nurturing open spaces -among them riparian landscapes -for recreation, and balancing between development and conservation.…”

Planners amid the storm: Lessons from Israel/Palestine

“…the absence of voting rights in national elections) of the local Palestinian population, and its consequences in the treatment of major planning issues? But the dilemma is not limited to planning in the West Bank: during the 1990s Israeli planners offered a decisive, creative contribution to the absorption of hundreds of thousands of Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union (Alterman, 1995); given the sensitivity of demographic balances for Israeli-Palestinian relations, was this "good planning"? And for whom?…”