Uri Ariel with hareidim at Tel Tzion (file)
Uri Ariel with hareidim at Tel Tzion (file)Flash 90

Minister of Housing Uri Ariel (Jewish Home) met with leaders of the hareidi community's housing projects Tuesday, to brainstorm over ways to expedite construction and solve the hareidi-religious housing crisis. 

The meeting was attended by Ariel, senior officials from the Ministry, and CEOs from several of Israel's most prominent building firms in the hareidi-religious sector.

Housing Minister Uri Ariel summoned the hareidi developers in order to hear from them firsthand about problems they encounter during construction projects and to speed up the bureaucracy so that building projects across the country could progress without unnecessary delay. 

Different companies, including the firms behind new projects in Tel Zion, Beit Shemesh, Har Yonah, Ahisamach and more, presented to the Minister and top Ministry of Housing officials to discuss real, practical solutions. 

Ariel was impressed with the quality and advancement of the construction projects and offered a range of solutions to expedite building, in order to build as many apartments as possible within the shortest amount of time. 

"At the meeting I discovered energetic entrepreneurs working to build thousands of housing units for the hareidi community," the Housing Minister stated. "I instructed the Housing Ministry to accelerate the construction relieve the various difficulties we discuss, because I see great importance to alleviate the severe housing shortages for the hareidi community." 

Ariel held the meeting barely a week after hareidi media slammed the Ministry for "ignoring" the housing crisis for the hareidi community, after it announced plans to build over 1,800 units in Judea and Samaria. 

Despite the fact that at least 125 units were due to be built in hareidi communities in that plan, the announcement was not enough for journalists at Kikar HaShabbat, who stated that the Minister's aim to solve the nationwide, multi-sector housing crisis across the entire spectrum of Israel's diverse population was not giving enough priority to the hareidi public. 

"The ignoring of a public so desperately in need of apartments is infuriating," wrote journalist Yaakov Reinitz. 

"The current Housing Minister, in contrast to his predecessors, only cares about the 'knitted' (religious Zionist) public, as proven by the generous tenders going to the different settlements," argued Reinitz. "Ariel completely erases the hareidi public from the marketing map, and we shout against this."