After TAMA 38: the Shaked Alternative and your building

The replacement arrived in Amendment 139 to the Planning and Building Law, published in the official gazette (Sefer HaChukim 3004) on July 10, 2022. It added a new article to the statute — Sections 70a through 70i. The market calls it the "Shaked Alternative," after the interior minister who pushed it through. The statute calls it a "plan for building resilience against earthquakes."

The official name is the more accurate one. The statute is aimed at resilience, not renewal — which is why a building already strengthened to the standard is not eligible.

TAMA 38 itself lapsed on October 1, 2023. Some local committees received a safety net that ran to May 18, 2026 at the latest — not automatically, and not everywhere. That date has passed too.

Bottom line: TAMA 38 is not an open track for anyone starting today. Anyone still citing it is citing a lapsed plan.

No — and this is what most owners get wrong. The Shaked Alternative is not a plan a municipality adopts. It applies nationwide by operation of law, and the entry conditions are tested against the building, not the city. There is no council vote to wait for and no policy document you are stuck without.

⚠ But two questions here sound like one, and they are not. The first is whether the track is open to you at all. That is a question about your building, and the answer does not depend on your municipality. The second is whether your particular plan gets approved, and at what scale — and that is the local committee's call.

Section 70i lets the committee reject a plan on planning, architectural, landscape, or economic grounds, for lack of adequate infrastructure and public facilities, or where it finds that complex-wide planning would be better — provided it sets out its reasons in writing. And every percentage below is a ceiling the statute permits it to approve, not an entitlement.

What does switch the track off entirely? Only a plan approved under Section 64(b). As of today there is exactly one such approved plan in Israel, in Holon. ⚠ A plan already approved under Section 23 of TAMA 38 does not switch it off — the two run side by side, and the committee may prefer the local one.

Bottom line: nothing to wait for, and someone to work with. Eligibility follows the building; scale is settled with the committee.

The definition sits in Section 70a, and it is built from cumulative conditions — all of them, not most. A building that fails one is outside the track, however old and however tired:

• the lot's designation in a plan includes residential use;
• at least 70% of the existing floor area is lawfully in residential use — "lawfully" is the word that knocks out additions built without a permit;
• the building permit was issued before January 1, 1980 — or between January 1, 1980 and December 31, 1984, together with a structural engineer's opinion that it was not built to SI 413, Israel's earthquake-resilience standard, as it stood when the permit was issued;
• no strengthening work to the standard has been carried out;
• it has at least 2 stories above ground and at least 4 permitted dwelling units.

Two details that change the arithmetic in practice: an open ground-floor level on columns (pilotis) counts toward the total, but a top story smaller than half the floor below it does not. And a building permitted on or after January 1, 1985 does not qualify at all, by any route.

Cumulative conditions — one unmet is enough for the track not to apply. Section 70a of the Planning and Building Law, as enacted by Amendment 139 (Sefer HaChukim 3004, July 10, 2022).

Bottom line: the permit year is the entry ticket. It is in the building file at the committee, and you can ask for it this week.

The amendment set different ceilings according to what happens to the building. A ceiling is what the statute permits the committee to approve — not a promise of approval, and not what you will end up with:

⚠ And two definitions people forget, both of which move your number. The area of a protected space (the reinforced safe room Israeli construction requires) is included within the increase rather than added to it. And in calculating the existing area, any addition permitted after May 18, 2005 is left out — a balcony or room added after that date does not enlarge the base the rights are calculated from.

On top of these, the statute also allows floor area for public uses: up to 10% of the added area on the demolition track, and up to 14% on the strengthening track.

Bottom line: the track is settled before anyone talks numbers with you — and the track is what decides how much there is to divide.

A preservation building is excluded from the track under Section 70h — whether designated in an approved or deposited plan, listed on a schedule of preservation sites, or designated by a notice under Section 77 or conditions under Section 78.

One opening remains: the Section 70e route — strengthening the building in place, with the added rights built on another lot, no increase in rights on its own lot, and no provision conflicting with the preservation documents.

Bottom line: a preservation building has one route. Anyone offering you another has not read Section 70h.

A plan creates betterment (an increase in value), and a betterment levy is paid on it. For plans under this article the statute set a reduced rate: one quarter of the betterment, under Section 19(b)(10a) of the Third Schedule. The ordinary rate of one half applies to the remainder, and the local authority may reduce the levy on the addition.

That number sits in the developer's pro forma, and it bears directly on what is left to distribute to owners.

Bottom line: a quarter of the betterment is a line in the same budget your compensation comes out of.

All three names come up in the same conversation, and they are three different things. One of them no longer applies. Pinui-binui is evacuate-and-rebuild: a whole cluster of buildings, not one.

Bottom line: Shaked and pinui-binui answer different questions of scale. One building on its lot is Shaked; a whole block is pinui-binui.

Section 70g lists what the committee must have in front of it ahead of a decision to deposit the plan for public review or to approve it, which is why a thinly prepared plan stalls:

Bottom line: how well the plan is prepared is part of what decides whether it is approved.

The agreement did not evaporate with the plan — it is a contract, and it still binds. What changed is the planning basis it rested on.

A developer who offers to "convert" your agreement to the Shaked Alternative as though it were a technical update is skipping the stage that matters to you. These are new deal terms — your chance to revisit whatever you liked least in the original.

Bottom line: read what is signed first. Then talk about what comes next.

1. 1Get the permit year. It is in the building file at the local committee, and it is the entry ticket — until you have it, there is nothing to discuss about compensation.
2. 2Confirm no strengthening work was done. An old job to the standard takes the building out of the definition, even if nobody remembers it happening.
3. 3Check whether a Section 64(b) plan was approved in your city. That is the one check where your city actually affects whether the track applies.
4. 4Organize an owners' committee before you talk to a developer. A developer negotiates differently with an organized building than with twelve owners acting separately.
5. 5Do not sign a term sheet without having it reviewed. Even an innocuous-looking page creates real commitment, and you only get one opening position.