The relocation of the Ramat Gan Safari Park, which was introduced final week, is just not the primary try, nor will or not it’s the final, to take management of a chunk of land value a conservative estimate of NIS 10 billion. If up to now this land attracted the personal sector, in the present day the federal government can also be eyeing the Safari Park, to achieve the potential revenue that can movement from it, and to win political credit score for growing the provision of residences. Nevertheless it now appears to be like like wishful pondering that the plan is shifting forward.
Final week’s deliberate festive signing ceremony for an settlement in precept to switch the Ramat Gan Safari to Ariel Sharon Park, to be attended by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ramat Gan Mayor Carmel Shama HaCohen was canceled. Below the plan, the land the place the Safari Park is at the moment situated will probably be rezoned for hundreds of housing models, whereas Ramat Gan would retain management of the park by extending its jurisdiction to a part of the Ariel Sharon Park.
On the floor, the plan appears logical. The Ramat Gan Safari occupies a big space of useful land in a central and costly location. Alongside the pleasure the Safari brings guests, complaints are acquired from residents of the rapid space concerning the noise and odor nuisances. It is smart for the Ramat Gan Safari Park to search out another web site.
The Ramat Gan Nationwide Park started as a small initiative to ascertain a wildlife sanctuary within the Ramat Gan Nationwide Park, and in response to Wikipedia, in October 1964, 23 animals from Kenya have been dropped at the park. Within the early Nineteen Seventies, Zvi Kirmeyer, director of the Ramat Gan Nationwide Park, initiated the institution of an open African zoo overlaying an space of about 1,000 dunams (250 acres), and in 1974 the safari opened to guests. Seven years later, the present animals have been joined by animals that had beforehand lived within the Tel Aviv Zoo.
The questions of whether or not, after greater than 50 years, it’s time for the Ramat Gan Safari to maneuver, and whether or not it’s typically fascinating for a municipality to handle such a nationwide challenge, are official questions however the discussions are dominated by political and vested pursuits.
It was the personal sector that found the big financial potential of the Safari Park’s 1,000 dunams, and virtually 30 years in the past it put ahead the proposal at the moment being mentioned, to relocate the Safari Park to Ariel Sharon Park (then the Hiriya municipal rubbish dump).
In 1997 “Globes,” reported that the then Ramat Gan Mayor Zvi Bar, stated that non-public entrepreneurs have been considering vacating the Safari Park in trade for a revenue from the sale of the land, which was then estimated at $1 billion. Bar, who spoke at a convention of planners of the Tel Aviv District Grasp Plan, spoke concerning the personal sector initiative to relocate the Safari Park to the Hiriya, simply as the federal government and Ramat Gan Municipality are attempting to do now. As soon as once more, it reveals how the personal sector notices alternatives lengthy earlier than the general public sector.
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What was value $1 billion in 1997 should be value no less than thrice that in the present day, and the argument is that the present initiative to clear the land additionally stemmed no less than partially from the billions it’s value.
The billions beckon
Now quite a lot of elements have come collectively: Minister of Environmental Safety Idit Silman desires to strengthen and finance the actions of Ariel Sharon Park; the Ministry of Finance desires to provoke new residential tasks; the Israel Land Authority (ILA) need to market as a lot residential land as doable; and Ramat Gan Mayor Shama HaCohen’s need to construct hundreds of residences for the town’s younger individuals, with out dropping administrative and municipal management over the Safari Park.
The Safari Park is being seen as an unreasonable use of one of the vital densely populated city areas within the nation. Nonetheless, the actual fact is that no planning company has been concerned in discussions thus far. Furthermore, in response to the define plans, senior planning companies settle for and approve the Safari Park in its present kind and site.
This has led to hasty conclusions being drawn by authorities ministries and the Ramat Gan Municipality, with Shama HaCohen not even informing the Safari Park’s board of administrators and the Ramat Gan council concerning the relocation of the Safari Park. Town, with the Planning Administration in no way concerned, and the Basic Directorate of the Ministry of Planning, which has been with out a director basic for over a month, has nobody to approve the plan, signal it, and put it on the market.
On Wednesday afternoon, it was introduced that the festive signing ceremony was canceled, as a result of Prime Minister’s schedule constraints. Nonetheless, it’s believed that the cancellation was made as a consequence of considerations that the occasion may turn into embarrassing.
The matter of relocating the Ramat Gan Safari Park will rumble on. The billions and political capital that the land is value will make that inevitable, however the true questions on the most effective location for the Safari Park will start to be requested at one stage or one other.
Printed by Globes, Israel enterprise information – en.globes.co.il – on February 1, 2026.
© Copyright of Globes Writer Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2026.
