TAMA 38 Urban Renewal

TAMA 38

The plan for strengthening buildings against earthquakes was approved in 2005 by the Government of Israel, and is meant to encourage residents who live in a building built before 1 January 1980 to strengthen their homes against earthquakes. This is done while receiving significant benefits.
For residential buildings entitled to building rights under TAMA, the local planning and building committee may approve one or more of the following actions:
• Strengthening the building only, with no building additions.
• Closing and filling in the open ground floor (pilotis) in order to build new apartments, or to enlarge the area of the apartments on the first floor.
• Building up to two floors in which new apartments can be built or the area of the floor below can be enlarged, or adding an additional wing with the area of two typical floors to the existing building in order to build new apartments.
• Building an additional partial floor with an area of up to half of the floor below it. The area can be used to add housing units or to enlarge the apartments on the floor below.
• Strengthening the building and enlarging the existing housing units (up to 25 gross sq m per apartment); the addition must include a safe room (Mamad) (12 gross sq m and 9 net sq m).
In buildings that are not residential buildings, the local committee may approve the addition of one floor or the addition of a wing with the area of a typical floor.
TAMA also allows adding an elevator, and requires presenting a parking solution for the new apartments.
In May 2012, the third amendment to TAMA 38 was approved, allowing the addition of up to 2.5 floors to the building being strengthened under the plan, in order to encourage its implementation.
Under TAMA 38, a full exemption is granted from the betterment levy and from capital gains tax. Also, the developer will not be liable for tax on construction services under the strengthening plan.