Physical-spatial planning is intended to regulate land use and the overall utilization of physical space. It is necessary for the construction of infrastructure, commercial and industrial areas, the development of residential communities, and the preservation of open spaces. Without approved planning, there is no construction – or worse, unplanned construction leads to physical, transportation, and infrastructural chaos, severely harming quality of life, dramatically increasing housing prices, and in extreme cases, posing a real risk to life.
Planning must take into account a wide range of aspects – social, economic, environmental, and safety-related issues. Therefore, the preparation and approval of construction plans is a highly complex process requiring coordination and balance among various interests, often conducted under conditions of uncertainty.
The legal basis governing Israel’s planning procedures is the “Planning and Building Law of 1965,” which still serves as the foundation for physical space planning in Israel and will mark its 60th anniversary next year. This alone may provide an initial explanation for the, to put it mildly, poor planning that runs through the real estate sector in Israel. This section will examine the planning procedures and their negative contribution to the housing situation, while the next section will explore the various – sometimes creative and sometimes less so – ways in which successive Israeli governments have attempted to ‘update’ the Planning and Building Law.
Composition of Planning Committees – Women’s Organizations and Sociologists?
The Planning and Building Law defines a framework of planning institutions, specifies their composition and powers, and outlines various types of plans, their hierarchy, and the processes and stages for handling these plans until a decision is reached. The law also establishes a network of planning institutions responsible for regulating land use in the country after examining the planning initiatives they express and sets out their authorities.
The planning institutions are organized into three levels: national, district, and local. At the national level operates the National Planning and Building Council. The role of the National Council is to advise the government on planning and building policy, including legislative matters. The National Council submits national master plans for government approval, approves district master plans, and also addresses appeals related to local master plans.
Under the National Council, several subcommittees operate, including the Subcommittee for Principal Planning Issues (VALNATA), which discusses issues referred to it by the National Council plenary regarding changes to master plans and objections to them; the Appeals Subcommittee, which hears appeals against the decisions of the district committees; and the Regulations and Procedures Subcommittee, which discusses planning and building regulations. The subcommittee members act on behalf of the National Council, are subordinate to it, and are appointed from among the council members. Alongside the National Council, other national planning bodies are also in place to handle specific issues1.
The National Council consists of thirty-six representatives, fourteen of whom are government members or their surrogates, with the Minister of the Interior or their surrogate serving as the Council’s chair. The Minister of the Interior is also authorized to appoint two additional representatives for the Haredi and Arab sectors. This means the elected government is inherently at a disadvantage and does not have a majority in the Council. As a result, the government’s ability to implement a planning vision, in line with the wishes of the citizens who granted it a majority, is significantly limited and may encounter insurmountable obstacles posed by representatives who did not receive a direct mandate from the citizens.
Other members of the committee include ten local authority heads (Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, two smaller cities, three local councils, and two regional councils), planning administration officials, and professionals (engineers, architects). Additionally, seats are reserved for ‘public representatives,’ such as representatives from environmental organizations, women’s organizations, students, the Jewish Agency, and ‘someone with training in sociology.’ The law does not explain why women’s organizations and sociologists are specifically given a place on the Council, as opposed to, for example, representatives from the LGBTQ+ community, settlers, Haredim, or recently discharged IDF veterans.
- Among the dedicated committees operating alongside the National Council are the National Infrastructure Committee, the Coastal Environment Protection Committee, and the Committee for the Protection of Agricultural Land and Open Spaces.
Legal Counsel Holds Sovereign Authority
If the planning hierarchy is beginning to sound convoluted, that’s not all. It turns out that even the government representatives on the National Council are not obligated to vote according to government policy; instead, they must follow the directives of the Attorney General. This situation arises from Guideline 8.1000 on “Minister’s or Representative’s Considerations in Planning Institutions.” These guidelines were endorsed by then-Attorney General and later Supreme Court Justice Menachem (Meni) Mazuz and have been upheld by the Supreme Court. Section 4 of the guideline states that the minister’s representative in the planning authority must consider only purely planning-related factors and “is not bound by the minister’s directive or government decision.” In other words, while the minister sends a representative, the minister cannot compel the representative to vote according to the government’s policy. Consequently, if the representative rebels and votes contrary to the minister’s position, the minister cannot dismiss and replace them.
The guideline further states that “government representatives in planning institutions may and should consider government policy,” but adds that “each specific decision must be dictated by relevant and appropriate planning considerations, based on the specific factors presented to them.” The guideline notes that a binding directive from the government to its representatives in a recommending body on planning matters “is inherently flawed, as it is not based on the necessary information to justify such a directive.” Therefore, “it is not appropriate for the government to make a specific decision regarding a matter on the agenda of a planning institution.” The implications of these guidelines, which disparage elected officials and essentially the public, are profound. They suggest that elected officials lack the necessary knowledge to make decisions based on “relevant and appropriate” considerations. As a result, the guidelines transfer power to bureaucrats and legal experts, who are self-appointed specialists. Their primary allegiance is not necessarily to the public that sent them (through the ministers who appointed them), but to abstract and interpretative terms such as “concrete planning.” The guidelines deprive the public of the mandate to determine its future in terms of physical-spatial planning. However, when citizens complain about poor infrastructure and planning, the blame will always fall on the government ministers, not on the representatives who defied the elected officials.
These guidelines are not merely theoretical. For instance, one of the representatives of the Minister of Justice on the Council is Deputy Attorney General, Adv. Carmit Yulis. It is well known that the Attorney General’s office does not often see eye to eye with the elected government and frequently acts to thwart government policy under legal pretenses. This means that Yulis and her counterparts, although labeled as ‘government representatives,’ actually report to the Attorney General rather than to the public who elected the government. Thus, even those labeled ‘government representatives’ on the Council may not act according to government directives and may even undermine its policies.
The legal counsel indeed benefits from this situation, but the gap into which the bureaucrats have stepped was created by the Knesset members and government ministers who failed to pass explicit legislation requiring government representatives on the National Council to obey the ministers who sent them. Such legislation might be thwarted by the legal counsel or the Supreme Court, as often happens in the only democracy in the Middle East. However, it is the responsibility of elected officials to do their utmost to implement the policies for which they were elected and sent to office.
Numerous Committees – Limited Powers
At the district level, under the National Council, there are six district planning and building committees, corresponding to the six administrative districts of the country2. The district committees operate under the Ministry of Finance and also function as critical and judicial bodies in planning matters across the various districts of Israel. The law defines a range of responsibilities for these committees, including initiating district master plans, reviewing and deciding on local and detailed master plans, and overseeing the activities of the local committees within their jurisdiction. Additionally, there are district appeals committees that address three main issues: planning and building permits, compensation, and betterment levies. Appeals are submitted to them regarding decisions made by local committees on these matters.
In addition to the district chair and the district planner, the district committee includes representatives from government ministries related to planning, local authority representatives from the district, a representative from the Israel Land Authority, an environmental organization representative, and a representative of the engineers and architects. In Judea and Samaria, parallel committees operate under military governance.
The district planning and building committee has the authority to submit district master plans for approval to the National Council. Simultaneously, decisions made by the district committee can be appealed to the National Council. The district committee itself has a district master plan approved by the National Council. Under the district committee, several subcommittees operate, such as the Subcommittee for Objections, which handles objections to city building plans within its jurisdiction, and the Appeals Subcommittee, which addresses appeals against decisions by local committees within its authority. Other district-level committees include a Special Planning Area Committee, which plans for areas that are not yet settled or where at least 75% of the housing units were established by or on behalf of the state; a Joint Planning and Building Committee that serves more than one district or planning committee; and a district-local committee.
At the local level, approximately 130 local planning and building committees operate. These committees are authorized to initiate plans, review and decide on some local and detailed master plans according to their authority, and handle requests for building permits that do not comply with existing plans. Alongside the local committees, there are local licensing authorities that review and decide on building permit applications that align with the approved plans3.
Local planning and building committee members are elected officials at the local level. However, the local planning and building committee is a separate legal entity from the local council. The boundaries of the local planning area are determined by the Minister of the Interior. Since the committee includes all local council members, subcommittees are usually formed with a smaller number of representatives.
In addition to the planning institutions, there are professional and operational mechanisms designed to support their activities, foremost among them being the Planning Administration. The Planning Administration is responsible for formulating national planning policy on various issues and includes a central office, six district planning offices, and other divisions as needed. The Planning Administration is tasked with initiating and advancing national, district, and local master plans; supporting the professional aspects of national planning institutions’ activities; providing professional guidance to district planners and district planning office staff; and preparing and advancing regulations under the Planning and Building Law. Additionally, the Planning Administration oversees all operational aspects of planning institutions at the national and district levels, including human resources, budgeting, computing, coordination, and control.
- Southern, Haifa, Jerusalem, Central, Northern, and Tel Aviv districts.
- In the local licensing authorities, there are only two key roles: the local committee engineer and the chair of the committee or the chair of a subcommittee.
Unique to Israel: The National Council Also Controls Local Planning Procedures
The structure of planning committees in Israel has been analyzed from an international perspective. In 2017, the OECD published a comparative study examining the planning systems of 32 member countries, including Israel. The study reveals that Israel is unique among OECD countries in its imbalance between central and local government in planning matters.
Except for Israel, national levels in the surveyed countries do not prepare land use plans for the entire country. They may, however, be responsible for preparing land use plans for areas of special significance. A key challenge for the national level is how to establish clear and unambiguous regulations while allowing sufficient flexibility for lower levels of the planning system.
Sixty-six percent of the surveyed countries have a hierarchical planning system4, where lower-level plans must comply with conditions set by higher-level plans. However, there are differences among countries regarding the extent to which higher government levels influence planning decisions made by lower levels. While some countries have national and regional planning systems that continuously oversee local planning decisions, others grant local governments a high degree of practical autonomy. In most countries, the local level must inform higher levels about plans under consideration and allow them to comment on these plans to ensure alignment with higher-level regulations. In some cases, approval from a higher government level is required.
Granting more authority to local planning has its advantages: local plans usually deal with clear planning boundaries. These plans are the primary statutory tool for determining land uses. They are clear, mandatory, and unambiguous, making enforcement easier. Plans affecting the entire municipal area are approved by elected local authorities, while those affecting only part of the municipal area are generally approved by professional staff. Local plans are the most detailed of all planning documents.
Comparative Report Highlights Israel’s Unique Planning centralization
Another comparative report, commissioned by the Planning Administration, a state body, reinforces the thesis that Israel is exceptional in its centralization of planning authority. The study compared Israel with four other Western countries: England, the Netherlands, Ontario in Canada, and Maryland in the USA. In all the countries examined, the planning systems feature a hierarchical structure with two or three levels (excluding supranational levels like the European Union, which is not present in Israel and provides only general guidelines). National and regional levels in these countries are responsible for overseeing local levels but do not participate in the formulation of plans. Instead, they set general principles that guide local planning and the implementation of overall planning policies. The oversight process and the overseeing body vary from country to country.
In some of the countries studied, the guidance and coordination mechanisms between levels are less cumbersome than Israel’s, which involves significant time and bureaucratic complexity. These mechanisms, based on regulation, allow higher levels to supervise and intervene in local decisions more effectively, as they focus on policy direction and intervention at key points rather than continuous oversight of every local planning decision, as is common in Israel.
In all the mentioned countries, including Israel, there is a comprehensive planning approach. However, unlike in Israel, the national level in these countries develops framework plans or master plans5. Framework plans in these countries serve as a basis for higher levels in the planning hierarchy to intervene in local planning only if the local level has not adequately considered them in its decisions. In practice, the deciding authority is the local level unless the higher level finds reason to intervene. For example, in Ontario, Canada, the central government6 leads the planning system through legislation that outlines statutory planning procedures and establishes mandatory policy principles. Local authorities must align their planning decisions with central government documents at all levels. Decision-making authority generally rests with the local council. Planning decisions are made by the city council, while the professional work is handled by the planning department, led by the city planner, which manages various detailed plans.
By contrast, in Israel, the national level is responsible for preparing binding national master plans from which regional, local, and detailed master plans are derived. The study indicates that national master plans include specific directives. Additionally, in Israel, planning at various levels is based on documents with directives and maps, rather than policy documents. Furthermore, there is a uniform structure for local and detailed master plans, which, according to the study, is also used for plans that are essentially master plans. This uniformity reduces creativity in planning and shifts the focus of discussions to specific rights issues rather than broader questions about the desired direction of planning.
Moreover, in Israel, non-elected professionals, particularly at the regional level, have significant planning authority. They effectively conduct professional oversight of local decisions and can even approve them. In contrast, the local level in Israel, like in other mentioned countries, is predominantly political. However, unlike in Israel, decisions made at the local level in these countries are usually final.
