Joint Position Paper: Jurisdiction and Proper Planning of Beer Sheva

Following the Interior Ministry’s decision to establish a commission to examine jurisdictional boundaries of local regional councils, localities and Arab Bedouin towns and villages in and around the Beer Sheva, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), Adalah, and Bimkom prepared a position paper. The paper, authored by planners Cesar Yahudkin and Nili Baruch (Bimkom), Attorney Rawia Aburabia (ACRI), and Attorney Suhad Bishara (Adalah), which was submitted on 19 June 2012 to the Commission, describes municipal responsibilities and appropriate planning practices for towns, villages and open spaces, as applied to Arab Bedouin communities in the Beer Sheva District.

Main Points:

• The design and determination of municipal boundaries and spatial planning should bear a direct relationship to human rights, because these regulations most strongly affect the quality of life of residents and the level of services. The local authority's prosperity, and therefore quality of public social services, infrastructure, accessibility to resources, and ultimately the living standards of its people depends largely on how its boundaries are set. Citizens deserve high-quality services springing from their right to dignity and decent living conditions.
  
• The Arab Bedouin population in the entire region is approximately 200,000 people. Communities that are part of the Abu Basma Regional Council and residents of unrecognized villages suffer from low income, housing shortages, and a lack of vacant land. Procedures for ownership claims, planning and development, and building physical and social infrastructure are severely lacking. Residents of the unrecognized villages have long been denied their basic fundamental right to local self-government, and their rights to dignity, equality and adequate living conditions.
  
• The Commission should give special weight to considerations of human rights, distributive justice, and equal opportunities, and focus on reducing socio-economic gaps between residents of the region, and especially between local districts, with the aim to allocate resources, land, and zoning equally.
  

Municipal Boundary Design Principles:

• Respect for and realization of fundamental rights for all Arab Bedouin citizens of Israel residing the Negev (Naqab).
  
• Equal status for all citizens, with the recognition of the Arab Bedouin’s unique needs.
  
• Disconnect between the issues of local municipal representation and services provision, and the acknowledgement of land ownership and the recognition of villages.
  
• Pooling resources for economic benefit and efficiency.
  
• Fair and wide distribution of resources across spaces.
  
• Create a planning strategy for Arab Bedouin communities.
  
• Find appropriate municipal solutions.
  

Appropriate municipal solutions:

• A variety of municipal solutions exist: redistribution of municipal building space, expanding the jurisdiction of existing towns, and the establishment of new local authorities.
  
• The authority’s planning areas should match jurisdiction borders.