SPNI slams plans for Eilat hotel, leisure complex
05/02/2012 04:09
The Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel claims building plans would be hazardous to landscape in the area.
A propective rendering of leisure complex Photo: SPNI
The Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI) is vehemently opposing
a plan to construct a large hotel and commercial center on Eilat’s southern
Almog Beach, claiming that such a project would be hazardous to the landscape
there.
The plan – which includes a 10-story, 160- room hotel as well as a
commercial shopping center on a 1.2-hectare (0.8-acre) plot – is on the table of
the Southern District Committee for Planning and Building, which will be
receiving public objections to the project up until June 1.
Among SPNI’s
main objections is that the leisure complex would be located on Eilat’s southern
coast, right behind the Coral World – Underwater Observatory Marine Park and
just over 100 meters from the shore. The developers would be building eight
additional stories on top of an already existing but abandoned two-story
building, SPNI said.
Construction regulations for the area only
technically permit building up to two stories, according to the organization.
However, in order to promote the plan, the National Council for Planning and
Building amended Clause 13 in the National Master Plan for the Coasts of Eilat,
which would allow the developers’ additional building requests, SPNI
said.
“This damage will be fully exposed each year to hundreds of
thousands of visitors and tourists at the Underwater Observatory,” a statement
from SPNI said. “Approval of the plan would create a precedent for hotel and
commercial building on the southern coast, and it is in clear contradiction to
the policies established in Clause 13.”
One of the goals of the National
Master Plan, approved several years ago, was to reduce development on the
southern shores of Eilat and preserve the coast as an open, natural area. To
ensure that development does occur in the city, however, the plan designates the
northern portion of the bay as an area for hotel construction, according to
SPNI.
“Eilat’s beaches are a national asset, and it is fitting that we
treat them this way,” the organization said. “Approval of the plan will let more
development infiltrate the southern shore, and a 10-story hotel in this natural,
coastal environment will be a landscape hazard.”
The organization
believes that “hotel development must be concentrated in the northern part of
the city, leaving the southern coasts as natural as possible.”