Telfed opens up Hadera project to avert ghetto

[source : www.haaretz.com]  -  published 6.8.10

Telfed opens up Hadera project to avert ghetto

By Raphael Ahren

The South African Zionist Federation (Israel ) recently dropped the exclusivity for South Africans from its latest real estate project in Hadera to avoid creating an English speaking "ghetto" there, the group's deputy director told Anglo File this week.

"We're still encouraging South Africans to buy, and we're still advertising [the project] in our Telfed magazine, but we've opened the building to Israelis so that there will be a mixture in the building and not only South Africans - because that's not healthy," Dorron Kline said.

About 14 months ago, SAZF (Israel ), widely known as Telfed, announced its latest real estate project, which is located in the coastal city of Hadera, about 45 km north of Tel Aviv. Similar to previous real estate developments by the group - such as the Dimri Towers in Modi'in - South Africans registering through the organization receive apartments at a significant discount.

The project was originally billed as an exclusive offer to the group's constituency, but after 30 of 41 apartments were sold to South Africans, both here and overseas, Telfed decided to ask the developer to offer the remaining properties, all of which are five-room apartments, to the general public. "All of our [real estate] projects are mixed," Kline continued. "In the Dimri Towers we sold 120 apartments, out of a total of 450. The idea is that the South Africans are mixed with [native] Israelis so that they don't live in a ghetto."

According to Barry Scop, an advisor for Remax who oversees the project and serves as liaison to prospective South African buyers, developer Neot Chen will start building this fall and complete construction within two years.

Located on Hadera's Hativat Hanahal Street, the building will include four- and five-room apartments and penthouses, ranging in price from about NIS 700,000 to a little over NIS 1 million.

Most people "bought out of combination of an investment and having a foothold in Israel," while very few South Africans intend to live in the new buildings upon their completion even if they'll move in down the road, said Scop, who moved to Israel from Johannesburg some 40 years ago.

A South African-born dentist from Ra'anana told Anglo File he purchased a four-room apartment for NIS 840,000 but does not plan to move in there. Rather, he did the acquisition out of purely financial considerations. "I don't know if it's a good investment, but it's affordable today. It's one of the few four-room apartments on the market that's new and affordable."