Court ruling upends the rules for urban renewal apartment expansions

A recent ruling by Judge Gilad Hess has shaken Israel's evacuation and reconstruction, or pinui binui, sector by rejecting the long-standing practice of giving every apartment the same added floor area. The court said that to preserve relative equality, owners of larger apartments, who hold a bigger share of the land, are entitled to a larger expansion than owners of smaller units.

Until now, residents in a building would join together against the developer to secure the biggest possible bonus area and then divide it equally. Under the new approach, that is no longer enough. The dispute is no longer only how much extra space the project will produce, but also who receives what share of it, a change expected to create fresh tensions among neighbors.

Attorney Baraz said the new formula can be implemented. He described it as relative equality, meaning that in a building with 100-square-meter apartments alongside 50-square-meter apartments, the larger units would receive double the extra area of the smaller ones.

The ruling also applies to entire evacuation and reconstruction complexes and requires differentiation between buildings with larger apartments and those with smaller ones. Because it is a district court decision that guides the officials overseeing land registration, it is binding, and the entire industry will have to adjust to it.