Today: Discussion on Abolishing the Separation Between Main Area and Service Areas

Under the method used today, a building plan also includes the ratio between main areas and uses and ancillary uses such as storage rooms, entrances, corridors and so on. The Building and Regulations Subcommittee will meet today to discuss the initiative of the head of the National Planning Administration, Natan Elnathan, to cancel this separation, which many consider to burden planning and licensing procedures with unnecessary bureaucracy

He clarified that this is a procedure that will save many checks, and that instead the area will be treated as a total area. This is part of a general initiative to amend the planning and building regulations dating from 1992.

The change in question concerns the section on calculating building areas and percentages in plans and permits (main and service area), under which a land-designation plan for building also determines the ratio between main-use areas and all areas in which building is permitted solely for providing ancillary services.

Main purposes include, among others, residence, commerce, industry and entertainment, and service purposes are shelters, storage rooms, parking, technical facilities, passages, access ways and the like. The addition of service areas required by a competent authority after the plan has been submitted will not be considered an addition to the building permitted under the plan, but will be specified in the building areas table of the permit application form.

However, under certain conditions the designation of service areas can be changed. As mentioned, this calculation method generates more checks, and therefore the national committee prefers to move to planning a total area, where the area's developer decides how to divide it among the different uses.