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Part Five - The Economic Plan
Municipal Building Reform (1/3)
The aim of the revolution is to simplify the use and sale of land, to bring about a continuing renewal of cities, to adapt land-use and construction to the demands of citizens (consumers), to minimize corruption in the industry by reducing the need for contact between the citizen and the establishment.
Main principles of the Municipal Building Reform
Redefinition of land use classifications: The accepted division (residential, agricultural, commercial, industrial, entertainment, craft, office, etc.) will be eliminated. Four categories will be redefined: nature reserves and gardens, public infrastructure, government buildings (national or local) and land for private use.
The division of cities into small and homogeneous districts: Cities will be divided into small areas with population as homogeneous as possible, in accordance with local communities.[17] The purpose of the division will be to transfer a large part of the municipality's authority to restrict construction to local communities.
Replacing the City Building Plan (CBP) with the District Plan Agreement (DPA): Restrictions on construction and land use in a given district will be accepted by residents of the district through the approval of an agreed-upon district plan, without the interference of the municipality or the local authority. This model will enable local residents to determine the nature of the district themselves and give them the flexibility necessary to respond to the changing demands of the local population and market conditions, while protecting the residents of the district from decisions that do not take their needs into account or that stem from extraneous considerations.
Redefining the right to object to construction so that it applies only to clear and concrete nuisances.
Reform in the construction process: We will create a more standard and simple format for the construction process, reduce the amount of bureaucracy required, and remove excessive regulatory barriers. This will reduce the ability of the local authority to delay or prevent construction for irrelevant reasons, along with all the negative phenomena resulting from this ability, and the dimensions of corruption will be reduced. The reform will reduce the costs associated with construction, shorten the time required before construction projects are implemented and encourage investment by developers in the field. Necessary building regulations will be strictly enforced and perpetrators will be severely punished.
Elimination of all taxes unique to land: capital gains tax, betterment levies, consent fees and more. The municipality will be able to collect a fee for any new construction, the main purposes of which will be to cover the costs of building supervision and fund the future expansion of public infrastructure (such as roads and sewage).
Establishment of a mechanism for rapid registration in the Land Registry.
Transfer of planning authority from the municipality to the residents
The authority to regulate construction in the city is currently in the hands of the municipalities, which implement it in accordance with a master plan that they prepare (better known as the City Building Plan or CBP), based on the concept that only a central planner with an organized and rigid plan can effectively design a complex system such as a city. When the municipality is given this planning authority, it is under the assumption that the municipality will be able to allocate permissible uses of its land in an efficient and balanced manner, to impose or remove construction restrictions according to the needs of the residents, and to accurately predict their future needs.
Zehut believes that this assumption does not meet the test of reality – The central planning actually harms the ability of cities to develop, harms the residents' ability to make efficient use of their lands, harms the economic feasibility of construction projects, and causes an increase in housing prices. In order for local communities to respond to changing market conditions and changing population needs, most planning authority must be transferred to the local community. We will do so by replacing the City Building Plan with an appropriate plan on the community level – the District Plan Agreement.
The District Plan Agreement (DPA)
The City Building Plan will be eliminated and replaced with District Plan Agreements. The authority to determine building and land restrictions will be taken from the local authority and given to the landowners in each neighborhood. This will enable the residents of that neighborhood to directly influence their residential environment and the value of their assets, and neutralize the influence of external factors with foreign interests. Neighborhood residents are the ones who are directly affected by the building plans, so their ability to assess the implications is better and their incentive to make correct decisions for the neighborhood is greater.
All of the limitations that appear today in the CBP can also appear in a DPA. For example, a DPA may determine an upper limit on the maximum permitted building height, a minimum number of parking spaces, or the possibility of opening a business in a given district.
A District Plan Agreement will be passed by a majority vote for a period of twenty years. Approval of the DPA will be made by means of a referendum in which all the property owners will participate in a given neighborhood. It will be possible to make changes in the DPA before it expires by means of signatures of a special majority of the property owners. Decentralization of decision-making authority so that it must be approved by most residents rather than by a limited number of officials will greatly reduce the ability of influencing decisions through bribery or other illegal means, thereby significantly reducing the degree of corruption involved in this process.
The CBP will receive DPA status for a 15-year adjustment period. During the adjustment period, the restrictions defined in the CBP will continue to apply as a default DPA in each district separately and will then expire automatically. Toward the end of the adjustment period, the property owners in the district will be able to adopt a new DPA. This lengthy adjustment period will allow property owners to examine the various plans or offer their own plans according to the considerations that guide them.
The DPA will be an agreement between property owners that can be enforced in court. A note will be made in Land Registry records of properties subject to a DPA noting that fact. Potential buyers will be able to consider the influence of restrictions that appear in the DPA on their preferred lifestyle and the possibility of improving the property before they purchase it.
Public buildings, urban gardens, roads, and urban infrastructure will remain subject to the local authority and will not be subject to a DPA.
[17] The initial division into districts will in fact coincide with the division into communities that appears in the "Community Model" chapter. Another division can be made later, subject to the consent of a significant majority of property owners in a contiguous geographical area.
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