The trustees of the Shaarei Zion endowment have filed a lawsuit with the Tel Aviv District Court against the Ministry of Finance, the Israel Land Authority, and the Tel Aviv-Jaffa Municipality to return expropriated prime seafront real estate on which an indigent hospital once stood. The trustees are National Insurance Institute director general Prof. Shlomo Mor-Yosef, Mikve Israel Agricultural School director Ronen Tzafrir, Israel Cancer Association director general Miri Ziv, and Tel Aviv-Jaffa property director Eli Levy.
The land adjacent to the Hassan Bek Mosque, on the seafront across the street from the David Intercontinental Hotel, was bought in 1895 by Joseph Niego, the manager of the Mikve Israel Agricultural School at the time, from the Austrian consul in Jaffa, who endowed it to Shaarei Zion for a hospital for indigent Jews. The hospital was in operation until 1920, and the building was destroyed during the 1948 War of Independence, when Jewish forces from Tel Aviv captured Arab-held Jaffa. The minister of finance expropriated the land in 1961 for "public purposes", but the government was listed as the landowner in the Land Registry only in 1980.
Although the purpose of expropriation was never realized, in 1984, the site was again expropriated in favor of the Tel Aviv-Jaffa Municipality. The endowment was never paid any compensation for the expropriations.
The statement of claim states that the hospital's land is now part of the Charles Clore Park, a commercial parking lot, and Paz gas station, the Dan Panorama Hotel courtyard, and Kaufmann Street, which are commercial interests that do not conform to the purpose of the expropriation. The petitioners add that parts of the land have been sold to third parties, including Charles Clore Parking Ltd., Dan Hotels Corp. Ltd. (TASE: DANH), and Oshri Benyamin.
The petitioners claim that the purpose of the repeated expropriations has not been met. "It is impossible to ignore these expropriations and transfers of part of the land to private parties for purely business purposes to generate profits." They argue that the transfer of the expropriated land from the state to the Tel Aviv-Jaffa Municipality is illegal and should be voided, and that abandoning the purpose of the expropriation in favor of private and commercial use demands the voiding of the expropriations and return of the land to the endowment, or the payment of compensation for the value of the land and proper use fees for past use. They are also seeking compensation for lost rent caused by the expropriation.
"It is inconceivable that any party, especially the State of Israel, the Israel Land Authority, and the Tel Aviv-Jaffa Municipality, should make gains from an expropriation that was never realized in whole or in part," states the motion. The petitioners have asked the court to order the respondents to disclose all income from the land, after repeatedly ignoring the petitioners' requests and the appointment of an assessor.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on April 23, 2014
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