Kiryat Gat bends outline planning rules for Intel
JNF, green groups blast city’s plans to be ‘attractive’ for chipmaker
The Kiryat Gat municipality requested changes to the District Outline Plan just after it was approved. This was done to facilitate future expansion of Intel’s fabs (semiconductor fabrication plants) in the city.
The requested changes, which were ultimately approved by the National Planning and Building Council last month, reduced the required allocation of open spaces in Kiryat Gat to expand the city’s industrial zone, in which Intel’s fabs are situated.
The giant US chip maker currently has one operational fab in Kiryat Gat (Fab 28), and is in the process of constructing another (Fab 38) at an investment of $10 billion.
In light of the global chip shortage, however, Intel is looking for places to construct more fabs, and Israel is one option under consideration. Although the requested changes to the District Outline Plan were approved, there is no certainty that Intel will, in fact, decide to build an additional fab, which will be its third in Israel if it does.
“We must be attractive to Intel”
In January of last year, the National Planning and Building Council, Israel’s supreme planning body, published an update to the District Outline Plan for the Kiryat Gat area. The National Subcommittee on Planning Matters of Principle finished dealing with objections to the plan only in January this year. Then, a week after the process ended, the Kiryat Gat city engineer wrote to the Southern District Planning and Building Committee, requesting further discussion of the plan to enable the city’s industrial zone to be expanded to the south, allowing for future expansion of Intel’s fabs. The District Committee chairperson wrote to the National Subcommittee on Planning Matters of Principle, which held a further discussion of the matter last month.
Allowing for future expansion of the Intel fabs meant reducing the open spaces in the outline plan, upsetting the balance between them and the built-up space, and impinging upon the urban fabric of Kiryat Gat. Two Intel representatives appeared before the committee: David Hadad, who is Corporate Services Site Factory Operational Manager at Intel Israel, and Miryam Weinstein, an architect in charge of infrastructure licensing at the company.
Hadad spoke of the drive by Intel to construct fabs and from Intel Inc. CEO Pat Gelsinger’s plans to turn the company into a powerhouse foundry, producing chips to order for external developers. This is in contrast to Intel’s classic model of manufacturing chips of its own design. In its foundry business, Intel seeks to compete with market leader TSMC of Taiwan, and, to that end, it needs more fabs.
In the US, Intel is building two fabs in Arizona at an investment of $20 billion, and fabs in Ohio, an investment that could reach $100 billion. At the same time, Intel plans to invest at least $19 billion in a fab in Germany, and it is in negotiations on investment in Italy, as part of its push to increase its presence in Europe.
“Basically, for the first time in 40 years, Intel is expanding to additional sites, and we must show that we continue to be relevant, and allow Intel to expand within a short time, because this revolution is just beginning,” Hadad told the committee.
According to Weinstein, in order for Israel to be attractive to Intel, it has to be able to provide land for no fewer than four fabs, amounting to 325 acres. “Israel will be an attractive site if we can demonstrate the ability to build at least four fabs,” she said. “Any less than that, and other places become more attractive, and as, has been said, even Intel is not a Zionist company.”
Kiryat Gat Mayor Aviram Dahari backs Intel wholeheartedly. In fact, Dahari is not concerned with the idea of reducing the amount of open space called for in the outline plan. “I always say that Kiryat Gat is 16,000 dunams bathed in a million dunams of green, so another 1,000 dunams less is not the issue here,” Dahari says. He proposes compensating for the loss of open space cut from the plan in other areas in the west of the city.
“This is precious time that we mustn’t lose,” he says. “The normal rules are good for normal times. Now we’re in a war, a war over who will lead global developments [...] we’re working with Intel, and they want a year before the board in the US gives them approval.”
“Will we dismantle national planning for every factory?”
The representative of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) opposed changing the outline plan for Intel’s sake. He referred to alternatives for enabling Intel to expand without that coming at the expense of open areas, such as by reducing the amount of land available for sale by the Israel Land Authority. “It’s always simplest to exploit open land,” he said.
Other objections were raised by environmental organizations. “I don’t know what Intel’s contribution is in comparison with other enterprises,” their representative said. “Will I dismantle all the national planning for every factory that comes along, and say we don’t need forests and open areas because here’s a factory that provides jobs? This is not a consideration that supersedes every other planning consideration.”
Despite the objections, the committee approved the requested changes.
(Globes/TNS)