Earlier this week, the Ramat Hasharon Local Planning and Building Committee, headed by the city's Mayor Avi Gruber, approved a plan for the Bereshit Complex, a small apartment housing complex on the north of Sokolov Street.
The plan concerns two plots with private owners and three plots co-owned by the Ramat Hasharon Municipality (40%) and private owners (60%), and includes the construction of five seven floor residential buildings, four along Sokolov Street and the fifth in Bereshit Street.
The buildings will have 135 apartments overall. 74 of them will be three-room, 75 square meter apartments, 48 will have four rooms and 90 square meters and 11 will be larger apartments. Such a division is based on the assumption that smaller apartments will be more affordable for young couples, senior citizens and single-parent families.
In addition, the project includes commercial space on the buildings' ground floors and two kindergartens, as well as an underground parking lot. According to the regulations, only 203 parking spaces could be approved in this area, due to its proximity to the light rail's yellow line. However, the requested plan, authorized by the committee, increased parking spaces to 266. The plan was recommended for deposit to the District Planning and Building Committee.
The project was planned by the Mazor-First architects office. The district committee has a similar, 145 apartment, project pending, located on the other side of Sokolov Street, near the entrance to the city, which was already approved by the local committee in 2014.
Ramat Hasharon Mayor Avi Gruber says that the municipality considers building long-term rent apartments in its part of the project, "The municipality has rights in the project and we intend to act to lower apartment prices for city residents. In parallel, we are considering the possibility of building housing for rent, with lower prices, in part of the complex. Not everyone can, or should, buy a large apartment and through this project we could help many people build their home in Ramat Hasharon with smaller and cheaper apartments on the free market."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on August 2, 2016
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