A long-running land dispute tied to the widening of Highway 4 between the Hadarim interchange and Hadera has ended in a major win for private landowners. For years, owners of agricultural plots along the route of National Outline Plan 43, or TATL 43, fought Israel National Roads Company and planning bodies over how much expropriated farmland in central Israel is worth, and whether compensation should still be based on valuations set decades ago.
TATL 43 converts farmland to road use along the section from the Hadarim interchange to the Nahala Hadera interchange. The state and National Roads had argued that the land was only worth tens of thousands of shekels per dunam because it had no planning potential. The owners said the plots were worth about 400,000 shekels per dunam, or more, and warned that raising the valuation to around 200,000 shekels could cost the state tens or even hundreds of millions of shekels across the many kilometers of expropriations.
Recently, the Central District Planning and Building Appeals Committee sided with some of the landowners and set compensation much higher than the authorities had sought, including a value of about 200,000 shekels per dunam for privately owned agricultural land in some cases. The rulings came in appeals filed by landowners in the Sharon region after their land was rezoned for road use. The committee’s decision produced loss-of-value awards ranging from 1 million to 2.5 million shekels for individual parcels.
National Roads and the Sharon regional planning authority argued that agricultural land should be assessed without future planning potential and presented lower appraisals. The company later tried to challenge the ruling through a late objection, citing material errors and calculation gaps, but the committee rejected the challenge and left the valuation in place.
Attorney Tzvi Shuv, who represented the appellants, said the Supreme Court’s “Deli Delia” precedent bars considering future planning potential in agricultural expropriation cases. He said the committee nonetheless recognized that private agricultural land has real economic value from existing rights and permitted uses, including photovoltaic facilities and income-generating agricultural uses, and noted that private agricultural land is not equivalent to land managed by the Israel Land Authority. The landowners’ appraisal was prepared by surveyors Oren Albaz and Ori Rozenswieg.
