Growing city-settlements maintain appeal

jerusalem | The ongoing debates over the separation fence and Israel's planned disengagement from the Gaza Strip seem to have had at least one definite effect: boosted apartment sales in communities on and over the Green Line, including Alfei Menashe, Beitar Illit, Modi'in Illit and Ma'ale Adumim.

Recent figures from the housing ministry report 247 homes sold over the Green Line in the past seven months, compared with 205 in the same period a year earlier, a 20.5 percent gain. 263 additional dwellings are under construction in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, compared with 100 during the same period last year.

But Shelly Levine, managing director of Tivuch Shelly Ltd., a real estate firm focusing on housing in Jerusalem, Beit Shemesh, Modi'in and Ma'ale Adumim, doesn't think the fence or the disengagement plan have made any difference. The homes being purchased aren't located in the smaller, more remote settlements, she said, but in the larger, more established city-settlements.

"People are going to what are considered the bigger cities, places like Ma'ale Adumim and Ariel," said Levine. "They're building like crazy in Ma'ale Adumim and Beitar Illit. But are people going to the smaller places?"

Roughly half of Israel's settlers live in high-population areas, recent figures from the Central Bureau of Statistics indicate. These areas include Ariel (pop. 15,600) in the northern West Bank, Ma'ale Adumim next to Jerusalem (28,000), and the group of settlements known as the Etzion bloc near the capital, including Efrat and Kiryat Arba (6,380) near Hebron.

"Nobody considers Ma'ale Adumim to be over the Green Line," says Levine; the city is officially in the West Bank. Nevertheless, certain factors have made it a satellite suburb of Jerusalem, such as the recently completed, three-kilometer road connecting it to Jerusalem, with two tunnels under the campus of Hebrew University on Mount Scopus. The new road allows residents of Ma'ale Adumim and other settlements on the Jerusalem-Jericho highway to reach Ramat Eshkol in the capital in about seven minutes.

Highways help. Over in Alfei Menashe, a 1,400-household community expected to double in size, the proximity to the Cross-Israel Highway, also known as Highway Six, has helped bring in new buyers. Some 50 apartments have been sold there since the beginning of the year, as well as 76 housing plots — a record for the small town situated off Highway 444 near the Palestinian town of Kalkilya.

Ashdar Real Estate says 60 percent of the company's clients who bought homes in Alfei Menashe come from nearby areas, including Kfar Saba and Ra'anana.

"We're only an hour from Jerusalem on Highway Six," said Michal Kramer, an English teacher who has lived with her family in Alfei Menashe for the past 12 years. "You can get to Jerusalem or Tel Aviv in no time, and you can get a beautiful home here for less money."