Smaller Holyland housing project approved

Jerusalem approves plan for the Holyland residential project in the city's Bayit Vegan neighborhood.

By MICHAL MARGALIT
Holyland still on hold 521 (photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
Holyland still on hold 521
(photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
The Jerusalem Regional Planning and Building Commission has approved a new plan for the Holyland residential project in the city’s Bayit Vegan neighborhood that reduces its building rights.
The building rights to the project’s western side were canceled in favor of developing public spaces and public buildings. The commission approved the construction of three 18-story high-rise buildings on the site’s northern section.
The Holyland project is at the center of one of Israel’s worst corruption scandals. Former prime minister Ehud Olmert, former Jerusalem mayor Uri Lupolianski and other former government and municipal officials were indicted in the case earlier this month.
Eight of the 16 buildings approved for the project have been built, while construction of the remaining buildings has not yet begun, and now they will not be built.
The original plan, which was approved in 1990, called for the construction of 16 high-rises, two of which would have 33 floors each, on the site of the Eretz Hatzvi Hotel, also known as the Holyland Hotel, which was built in the 1960s.
Holyland investor Polar Investments Ltd., controlled by US developer Ziel Feldman, on Tuesday notified the TASE that eight of the originally planned building in the Holyland project would not be built, following the commission’s decision.