"They're going to ruin Haifa Bay"

Micha Ratner  picture: Paul Orliev
Micha Ratner picture: Paul Orliev

Architect Micha Ratner claims the new Haifa port will be a financial and environmental disaster.

The landscape and seascape of Haifa Bay are in danger. At least, that is what is claimed by residents of the area who oppose the construction of the private port in the bay. Not only is the view in danger, they claim, but also the public purse. The other week, the Israel Ports Development & Assets Company Ltd. (IPC) announced that the winner of the tender to construct part A of the Bayport was the Shapir Engineering and Ashtrom consortium. The declared cost is NIS 3.98 billion, but if you ask veteran Haifa architect Micha Ratner, this sum is far from the real cost we shall pay. The Israeli public, he says, will pay at least double the cost presented by IPC and the Ministry of Transport.

"Everything to do with the Bayport is one big failure," says Ratner, who planned the Haifa Port in the 1990s and who has accumulated decades of experience in designing marinas and ports in Israel and overseas.

"The Israeli public must make its voice heard and cry out to the high heavens over what is about to be done to it. The size of the port has been reduced, and so the public perhaps thinks that the Bayport will cost it NIS 3.98 billion, but that's not so. This is the cost of constructing the reduced port, which will have to be expanded in another few years. IPC knows that the price will not end there, and that the state will have to pay huge amounts more for various additions. If the private port succeeds, the winning operator will demand, rightly, that the port should be expanded straightaway."

The Bayport is one of two private ports that the state has decided to build with the aim of boosting competition in the industry, and, some would add, of breaking the strong unions at the public port companies. Ratner, who warned of a debacle in an interview with "Globes" in January this year, again stresses: there are alternatives. "International companies like Parsons Brinckerhoff participated in an alternative design years ago, one that included an international airport, but IPC never presented it in the environmental impact survey," he says. "Instead of that, IPC presented six identical alternatives and another six for a much broader future situation. If I were them, I wouldn't mention the future planning, because anyone who sees it can understand that the design is for building a port with a city, not a city with a port."

Apartments instead of container ships

One of the controversial issues is the support areas for the port, the port gate area where there is a huge installation for handling thousands of trucks a day, workshops for equipment, garages, warehouses, and logistical sites serving the port, such as a refrigeration shed, storage for agricultural exports, and so on. Today, there is no such infrastructure, and according to Ratner setting it up will cost NIS 3 billion that have not been budgeted, and that the public is not even aware of. "A port can't operate without a support area, and IPC is facing an impossible situation," says Ratner, "It has two choices. One is to do away with the airport and to take over the Technical School and convert it into a support area. The other is to take over the Petroleum & Energy Infrastructures tank farm in Kiryat Haim, which covers an area of about 200 acres. The port support area means doing away with the only existing airport in Northern Israel, and, apart from that, buying the Technical School will cost the public about NIS 800 million, while a deal to buy the tank farm would simply be a crime. Instead of the tank farm, it would be possible to build thousands of housing units in the most beautiful place on the bay. Given today's housing shortage, there should be a public outcry at the fact that the most beautiful spot in Israel is going to be ruined. I repeat, it's a crime. Tens of thousands of people could have lived there, and instead there are going to be thousands of containers and warehouses."

NIS 800 million is no trifle, but before, you talked about NIS 3 billion.

"NIS 800 million is just to pay for the land to the Israel Lands Administration and the Ministry of Defense. After that, they will have to build roads and railway infrastructure. According to Yefe Nof Ltd., which is owned by the Haifa municipality and carries out infrastructure and transport works in the area, the cost comes to NIS 1.2 billion. Furthermore, constructing the logistical area of the port itself will cost more than NIS 1 billion. And I haven't yet mentioned the fact that the port logistical area will require the relocation of the airport, which of course will have to be budgeted for. So we reach an additional NIS 3 billion at least that IPC is aware of, but the public is not."

What's the alternative?

"Local planners, with the aid of Dutch external consultants and engineering company PB, presented the alternative twenty years ago. Under the master plan, the Carmel Terminal A quay should be doubled in capacity, a plan known as Carmel Terminal B. I also submitted an alternative plan ten years ago for constructing Carmel Terminal B in the form of a diagonal quay that would allow three large container ships to dock simultaneously, as opposed to just one in the Bayport. In that way, it would be possible to reach higher unloading capacities than those of the Bayport, the project would be cheaper by billions, and the construction period would be much shorter, because the port logistical area already exists and already includes rail access. The impact on the landscape would also be much more moderate."

But this is outdated planning that perhaps cannot provide for the economy's growing needs. Some say that large modern ships would be unable to turn around under the previous plan.

"That's a bad joke. The turning circle is a radius of 800 meters, and it's always away from the quays. It's close to the entrance to the port and it provides for two ship lengths of 400 meters, which is standard around the world."

IPC hid plans?

How will the currently planned port affect the landscape?

"It doesn't take a genius to realize that under the Bayport plan as it stands, the view of the bay will be completely ruined. As soon as they build the port, there will be no going back, and the most aggravating thing is that IPC never exhibited the plans by the international consultants. It hid them away. Not only that, it was also under an obligation to present a simulation of the damage to the landscape."

And it never did so?

"It presented it the way it wanted to. The filming was done on a hazy and foggy day so that the details are not apparent. The simulation was not complete either. IPC did not present in the simulation the future naval base that will be built behind the Bayport, nor the development and extension of the drained area that will in the next planned stage, not to mention the view that will be utterly wrecked from the other side of Kiryat Haim. Do the people who live in the Krayot know what is being built under their noses? Anyone doubtful about the reliability of my information is invited to study the simulations produced by Yigal Tzamir, the planner for Haifa Bay, which validate what I say. As far as the Ministry of Transport and IPC are concerned, the main thing is to destroy the unions at the existing port so that they can say that they're fighting the monopolies and the cost of living. But at any price?"

Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on November 24, 2014

© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2014

Micha Ratner  picture: Paul Orliev
Micha Ratner picture: Paul Orliev
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