Residents living in poverty may be thrown out of their homes and lose opportunities for urban renewal because of the “Tenant Refusal” law. The bill could prevent disadvantaged residents from demanding a restriction on the maintenance cost of the residences after the renovation. Last Tuesday (3.7) an important meeting was held in the Knesset Urban Renewal Committee.
This emerges from a position paper submitted to Azaria by Rabbis for Human Rights. The Tenant Refusal law is supposed to prevent residents who object to urban renewal projects from torpedoing the project. Our organization is demanding that a social clause be added to the law that would enable weak tenants to oppose the project in order to require the contractor to lower the cost of future maintenance.
“Urban renewal may be an opportunity for disadvantaged residents living in poverty to improve their standard of living. However, because of the future maintenance costs of the property, it may cause the weaker residents to be thrown out of their homes, move to another weak neighborhood and lose the opportunity to renew their houses, Rabbis for Human Rights, Rabbi Idit Lev, said. “We should allow the weakened residents to delay projects in order to ensure that they can stay in their homes even after the renewal, and we demand that the refuseniks be allowed to continue to defend their rights.”
“Urban renewal is a historic opportunity to crumble the pockets of poverty in the neighborhoods and reduce the social gaps… but an inaccurate action is likely to increase ghettos of weakened populations that will be removed from the urban renewal areas,” wrote the position paper submitted by the organization to the Knesset Reform Committee, Azarya.
“The transition from four-story housing to a high tower means a significant increase in expenses,” the position paper states. “Maintenance costs are greater than what they were paying. That’s includes monthly payments for maintenance, elevators, generators, lobbying, gardening, cleaning, long-term maintenance and more. In addition, an increase in property taxes is expected as a result of the increase in the area, the change in the classification of the area, and the additional electricity used due to the lack of solar water heaters in the towers. The result is that the family living in poverty will not be able to live in the building again, and will be pushed into a slum or another city. ”
The contractor can offer changes that include a smaller apartment and a maintenance, housing, or joint income-generating fund.The contractor can influence future maintenance costs according to the building materials he chooses, if he decides to use a maintenance consultant, etc. To incentivize the commitment to take into account the needs of the person living in poverty, it is necessary to create balances in both the law and tax incentives. ”
“The Tenant Refusal law, which deals with a tenant who refuses without a reasonable reason for urban renewal, must also recognize that a person who is not offered a solution that will enable him to return to live in the area in which he lives – is reasonably opposed and is not defined as a refusenik. The market forces and to create appropriate balances. “Morally speaking, it is inconceivable that the very weakest, the people living in poverty, will be the ones who will pay the price of renewal in favor of entrepreneurs and middle-class tenants and tenants.
The process of urban renewal, including the rebuilding of old neighborhoods, is not only an engineering process, but also a social process.
The demolition of the old buildings and their reoccupation of old and new tenants can be very welcome for local residents, but it also carries many social dangers for people who live in poor conditions. The amendment to the Encouragement of Evacuation Projects Law provides tools for dealing with tenants who object to projects with the goal of preventing greedy tenants from extorting unfair conditions.
Rabbis for Human Rights agrees to this principle but requires that a tenant has a right to refuses to live in poverty and refuses to the new apartment because he can not continue to live in the new neighborhood.
The new neighborhood will consist of high-rise buildings that require a much higher standard of living due to maintenance costs, payment to the management company and higher municipal taxes than they paid earlier. Thus, although the value of the apartment on paper is higher, the income of the tenants remained as before and will have no choice but to sell the property and move to weaker areas. In this way, instead of the renewal process being a tremendous tool for reducing social gaps, it will contribute to the creation of ghettos of weakened families on the outskirts of or outside the big cities.
We, Rabbis for Human Rights, demand that families living in poverty be excluded from the definition of “tenant refuseniks”. We point out that, in the committee’s deliberations, we offered many solutions to solve this problem.
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Rabbi Idit Lev, the Director of Social Justice at Rabbis for Human Rights, responded to the approval of the proposal for a second and third reading of the law, saying that “the law concerning the rights of apartment owners in urban renewal situations while ostensibly promoting the public good undercuts the tenant’s property rights. It is an unbalanced law that disadvantages the tenant. Due to the Knesset’s ignorance on the subject, the law detrimentally effects the rights of the weaker members of our society and favors the powerful: the developers, contractors, and others with money.
“We welcome the amendments introduced that will benefit the elderly population and promote the sharing of information between the developers and apartment owners. However, during the many months that the bill was being discussed, we shared with the committee the difficulties faced by the poverty-stricken population and apartment owners. However, the committee chose to leave out the amendment that would have allowed people living in poverty to object to an urban renewal project if it turns out that the tenant will be unable to return to live in the property after the changes because of increased costs for upkeep. Many similar urban renewal projects will take place in poor neighborhoods where residents will be negotiating, at a disadvantage, with the developer. We regret that the Knesset chose to ignore this.”
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