OPEN SPACES
Methyl bromide was actually a marginal issue for the Ministry. Soon after taking office, Sarid became convinced that preservation of open spaces was Israel's top environmental challenge.[108] The issue was far be-yond the Ministry's traditional sphere of influence, and Sarid found he was swimming against a very strong current. He seemed to enjoy the exercise.
Ironically, although farmers may be faulted for their contribution to water pollution problems, they also deserve credit for literally serving as a hedge for open-space preservation during Israel's first forty years. Though cultivated farmlands transformed the landscape, they provided a buffer. This was especially important for maintaining local biodiversity in many of Israel's central and northern postage-stamp-size reserves. The weakening of Israel's agricultural sector during the late 1980s would have unforeseen but extremely grave ecological ramifications.[109] Open spaces began to disappear as farmers sold out. A comparison of aerial photo-graphs in the center of the country showed that between 1987 and 1996, the 250 square kilometers of built-up areas were enlarged by an addi-tional 490 square kilometers. If the trend continued, open spaces would be reduced by at least a half within a generation![110]
The influx of hundreds of thousands of Soviet immigrants could only partly explain the phenomenon. Veteran Israelis were happy to sell them their crowded city apartments to buy up and move to more comfortable suburban developments. Villas had once been considered a luxury for Israelis. Most rural cottages were austere, and detached single-story homes constituted only 10 percent of housing starts. Yet, with prosperity, the amount of residential space per person rose steadily in Israel, and by the late 1980s more than 55 percent of the units built in Israel were private houses.[111] The resulting sprawl brought with it roads and a proliferation of industrial areas and accompanying services.[112]
The change in agricultural status, though, was the primary cause. Until the 1980s, farmland hugged the city limits of many Israeli towns, forcing planners to build up rather than out. Agricultural communities themselves remained small—limited in the moshav sector by the amount of cultivable plots, and in the kibbutz by both the public's hesitancy to embrace its social-ist restraints and the selectivity of kibbutz members. Eighty percent of
But all this changed virtually overnight in 1990. When the Israel Lands Administration was transferred from the jursidiction of the Ministry of Agriculture to the Building and Housing Ministry, it was more than a bu-reaucratic shift. Under the pressure of the emergency legislation passed to circumvent the planning committees, all the dams seemed to burst at once. Almost half of the 340,000 new residential units approved for develop-ment between 1990 and 1994 were outside city limits.[114] The Agriculture Land Preservation Committee, which had enjoyed virtual veto power to undermine development in rural areas, was quietly denuded.[115] At the same time, a 1990 decision by the Israel Lands Administration Council completely changed farmers' economic incentives. Rather than prohibiting farmers from converting their fields to a residential designation, compen-sation for doing so was instituted and zoning procedures were simpli-fied.[116] For the many farming communities who were already deeply in debt, whose livelihoods were less and less dependent on agriculture, and who sought to build new neighborhoods for their children, it represented a windfall. For many farmers it was easier just to sell out.
Sarid railed against the disappearing Israeli landscape at every oppor-tunity. He adopted the environmental party line: Only in the desert was there room for suburbia. (Because he was a long-time resident of a north-ern Tel Aviv high-rise, his message did not smack of the elitist hypocrisy that many environmentalists suffered who themselves enjoyed a rural lifestyle but called on everyone else to live in the city.) Sarid did more than simply raise public awareness about the importance of open spaces. He also pushed resolutions through a Cabinet-level environmental com-mittee that carried the force of government decisions. The craters in the Negev were to be preserved rather than used for mining. The Sharon Park, the last open space between Netanya and Hadera, while still mired in private claims, got a major boost from a Cabinet-level blessing. In a Sarid-brokered compromise, a highway that would have cut into the heart of the park was channeled underground. And the emergency Planning and Building Procedures Law was at long last canceled.
In an astonishing departure from Zionist dogma, Sarid also pushed the government to adopt a moratorium on new settlements inside Israel. As he was fond of saying, “There just isn't any room left.” Under a new vertical imperative that many architects with Green credentials called excessive,