The Ministry of Defense must vacate the Antenna Hill base in north Tel Aviv, the Tel Aviv District Court ruled today, after dismissing an appeal filed by the state on the ministry's behalf. The court upheld last year's ruling by the Tel Aviv Magistrates Court, which ordered the ministry to vacate the base. The court ruled that the ministry must clear the base's access road and parking lot, which were built on private land, by May 30, 2013, and pay the landowners reasonable use fees for the land for use since 2007.
A panel of three judges made the ruling: Dr. Kobi Vardi; Issaiyho Schneller; and Ruth Lebhar-Sharon.
The petitioners were 128 landowners in the Tel Baruch area, near the Sun and Sand project, who petitioned the court to order the state to clear the land and who sought NIS 758,000 in compensation. They claimed that, before 1990, the Ministry of Defense had seized the land to expand a nearby IDF base, and that it built antennas on the land, as well as a road and parking lot for the base's users.
In February 2012, the Tel Aviv Magistrates Court ruled in the petitioners' favor, saying that the state had ignored the landowners' property rights and that it illegally used the land, since the state only expropriated it for the period 2002-07, and subsequently held it without paying proper use fees.
In its petition, the state said that the court had ignored the fact that the landowners never tried to use the land, so they never lost money for actual use of it. It also said that the court ignored the harm to national security from a base which cannot be reached after the ruling, while the damage to the landowners was negligible. The Tel Aviv District Court dismissed the arguments.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on April 30, 2013
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