The illusion of the “National Plan 38”: Earthquake reinforcement is just an excuse for economic profits
The plan to reinforce buildings against earthquakes – National Master Plan 38 - creates an illusion of "readiness" but because it is economically feasible only in areas of high land prices, it contains an inevitable preference for better-off regions in Israel. These, it so happens, are less prone to earthquakes. In practice, NMP 38 is mainly a tool for the upgrading the value of non-substandard units through permission to add a few additional units to each building. Ostensibly, the plan “does no harm” but in fact it takes away tax revenues from less affluent areas of cities and destabilizes stable neighborhoods.
The ownership is Public, the benefits are not
Public land ownership holds many potential benefits for the public. But a new study found that in Israel, where most of the land is nationally owned, the public does not enjoy most of these benefits, but instead has to bear the disadvantages.
