[RBS] The Battle Continues

[Ephrayim Naiman]

Dear Chadash,

Thank you for bringing news to the English-speaking population in Beit Shemesh.

In your "News Flash" entitled "The Battle Continues", you state that "nearly
all" of the objections were achieved through "political signings".

The objections to Gimmel-2 were started (and spearheaded) and
run by well-meaning, Tziburi-oriented people in R/BS, not Mateh Yehuda.
Hundreds and most probably thousands of people from R/BS object to these plans.
The objections submitted were due to *serious* faults and planning mistakes
being pushed by Iriyat Beit Shemesh.

The reports submitted with the objections was 150-pages long!
All of them - *real* - problems that will cause *all* of us to suffer:
R/BS and Mateh Yehuda alike.

We *desperately* need more housing, but we also desperately need other
things like schools (not trailers), increased inter-city and intra-city
roads (not traffic jams), public buildings and real access to them,
parking lots (and not "double parking"), place for rental cars, handicap access,
safe bus routes, parks, shuls, Mikvas, commercial zones, etc.

All of these are documented in the objections submitted by *experts*, some
of them Iriyat Beit Shemesh itself!

Most of R/BS doesn't realize that Gimmel-1, currently being built, is
planned for about 12,000 people, around half of RBS-A, and they have a
*TOTAL* commercial zone about 1/4 the size of Yesh! :-(

These are not issues that can be solved afterward.
And by compounding the problems already in place,
by adding another 5,000 residents to RBS-A currently planned (without
another mikve!)
and 10,000 more in Gimmel-2 without the proper planning -
it is catastrophic and to no one's benefit ... that I know of.

Finally, your statement of "since it is already known that much of the
opposition is political, it has a low chance of being accepted", all I can
say is I hope you just gave "acceptance" an Ayin Hara :-)

-Ephrayim Naiman
ejnaiman at gmail.com