The Regavim movement on Sunday petitioned the Haifa District Court against the Misgav Regional Council’s Local Planning and Building Committee following the construction of a huge illegal villa within the council’s zone, branding it “a new record for anarchy.”
The Misgav Regional Council in the Galilee region in northern Israel is home to 22,000 Israelis, in 35 small towns, Kibbutzim and Moshavim, 29 of which are primarily Jewish, 6 Bedouin.
About six months ago, Regavim, which systematically monitors illegal construction and expropriation of state land, primarily in the Arab sector, noticed the construction of a huge five-level, two-part mansion built on state owned land.
In the past half-year, Regavim has sent repeated requests to the Misgav Local Committee demanding that it carry out supervision and enforcement activities against the illegal construction carried out under its jurisdiction. However, the requests were not answered.
As the lack of response persisted, Regavim petitioned the court through attorney Boaz Arazi, to instruct the local committee to use the enforcement tools available to it: issuing stop-work orders, filing indictments against offenders and demolishing the illegal building.
“Even though the phenomenon of illegal construction has long become a state plague, this one is still a very special case,” explained Yishai Hamo, director of operations for the Regavim movement in the northern district. “This is a real castle, which was established with a bottomless disregard for the law, on land that belongs in part to the state.”
“Until now there has been leniency towards illegal construction established in the jurisdictional areas of the Arab communities,” Hamo noted, “but in this case, the area in question is outside the boundaries of the Araba community, and therefore there is no planning future or any possibility of legalizing.”
