The 8th Conference of the International Academic Association on Planning, Law, and Property Rights, Haifa, 10-14 February 2014

The 8th Planning, Law, and Property Rights (PLPR) conference was different from the seven previous PLPR conferences for several reasons. As almost all of the previous conferences (Edmonton 2011 is the only exception) have taken place in February, winter jackets, tights and umbrellas have probably been at least as important for conference participants as their papers. Amsterdam, Warsaw, Aalborg, Dortmund, Edmonton, Belfast or Portland (Oregon) cannot compete with the almost 20° Celsius and the continuously shining sun in Haifa and the rest of Israel. Hence, it seems that Rachelle Alterman, Founding President and Honorary Fellow of PLPR, who was the Chair of the Local Organising Committee, has even better connections than all PLPR members would have expected. The Local Organising Committee members Cygal Pellach, Jesse Fox, Nir Mualam, Dafna Carmon, Micha Drori, Nira Orni, Michelle Oren, Ronan Bar-Lev, Dorit Garfunkel, many student assistants and, last but not least, Rachelle Alterman did indeed do a wonderful job - not only with respect to the delightful climate of Haifa.Pre-conference day-long workshopsFor the first time in the history of PLPR, the conference was held for five days and participants could choose between four pre-conference day-long workshops representing the key challenges for planners and planning-law experts in Israel. During the workshops, the Local Organising Committee was very well supported by city architects and engineers, mayors, NGOs, religious leaders, economists, social activists and lawyers, who all gave the participants the opportunity to get an insight into Israel's planning and property rights system. This was both necessary and highly fascinating, because Israel is different from many OECD countries - in other words: unique. In no other developed country does the state own so much land (almost 94 per cent). The country had, and still has to face, immigration from many parts of the world, a high fertility rate and high population density (Alterman, 2002; 2003).One workshop examined the historic preservation in the dynamic metropolis of Tel Aviv. As the city of Tel Aviv has the world's largest concentration of buildings built in the modern, or Bauhaus, style in the 1930s, historic preservation is both important and difficult. Workshop participants learned about the set of conflicts between historic preservation and development in the ancient city of Jaffa, and compared differences between the ancient Jaffa and the more modern Tel Aviv. The extensive compensation rights for 'regulatory takings' in Israeli law are often a financial burden for cities, with respect to historic preservation goals. The kibbutz communal model - a form of collective land ownership in Israel - and its recent transformations were the centre of attention of another workshop. Israel's 256 kibbutzim have created rural or quasi-rural communities with between 200 and 1,000 inhabitants, which is approximately 2 per cent of Israel's population. The kibbutzim could be regarded as a planning laboratory for many reasons: decision-making is fully participatory, the land is in the hand of the nation, local resources are communal and public facilities are all shared. Today, the kibbutzim are not exempt from facing trends such as partial privatisation and economic transformation.Another workshop focused on national land ownership, Israel's 'reverse' housing crisis and observed how Rishon LeZion, Israel's fourth largest city, dealt with the mass immigration from the former Soviet Union in the 1990s. Rishon's population has doubled over the past twenty years, the city is still growing and average apartment costs are higher than in Jerusalem, Ashdod or Haifa. Rishon's mayor Dov Zur explained the problems, in particular in terms of housing units, new infrastructure, financial burdens and integration. He talked with the participants about the main issue: 'How to develop a city under such extreme circumstances?' National land ownership and a public leasehold land system can solve at least some of the problems. …

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