The debate over the 22-year old Achziv Beach development project continued to rage on in the Knesset last week. Following the urging of Joint List MK Dov Khenin (Hadash), the Knesset’s Interior and Environmental Protection Committee met in the hopes of getting the project rejected, or at least reformulated. The original plan, approved in 1994, called for hotels and 1,600 single-unit homes to be built on a 30-hectare plot of land adjoining Achziv Beach near Nahariya, in northern Israel. Most of the planned units border the beach, and some are only 100 meters away from the Mediterranean Sea. Furthermore, part of the development would be only 300 meters away from an asbestos factory.

Environmental activist and residents of Nahariya hold a vigil outside the Knesset against the Achziv Beach development project. (Photo: Struggle Committee)

In the 20 years that the plan lay dormant, much has changed. Thus, in 2014 the Haifa District Court called for planners and local authorities to reconsider the project. MK Khenin said the Achziv plan is contrary to the country’s coastal protection laws, as well as the National Master Plan, known as Tama 35, which is meant to guide the country’s spatial development for the next two decades. Also, Liran Shapira, a representative for the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel, told the committee that the Achziv Beach plan must be frozen until it can be reformulated. “It is a very old plan and no longer suits today’s reality,” he said. He stressed the importance of protecting every centimeter of the northern coast. “This plan, as is, would harm every effort to protect this extremely unique natural resource.”

According to Eli Ben Ari, a legal adviser for Adam Teva VeDin – Israel Union for Environmental Defense, the beach-front construction plan is absurd. “It is in the national interest for this project to be abandoned,” he urged. Currently Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon is responsible for either stopping the plan or giving it final approval. However, a bill now advancing through the Knesset would transfer fast-track approval to the Ministry’s National Planning and Building Committee, while the controversial bill regards hotels as a form of “national infrastructure.”

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