Kiryat Ono

Kiryat Ono lies in the Ono Valley in the Tel Aviv District, east of Ramat Gan and near Savyon; Road 471 runs along its northern boundary.[4] It forms part of the Coastal Plain’s Tel Aviv region and occupies the edge of the Tel Aviv conurbation.[1][5] A 2017 government traffic-safety audit gives its municipal area as approximately 5 square kilometers.[4]

The city’s residential character is reflected in the contrast between older northern neighborhoods of detached houses and gardens, central streets lined with apartment blocks, and newer neighborhoods in the northeast and south.[2] Employment and commercial areas are relatively limited, and most residents work outside the city.[2] Expansion and redevelopment plans seek to accommodate a substantially larger population while adding employment space, improving transport connections, and maintaining green corridors.[2][6]

Kfar Ono, also rendered Kefar Ono, was established in 1939 as a moshav by immigrants from European countries.[1][2] Its 40 founding families initially lived together with Arab Bedouins.[1] The settlement took its name from ancient Ono, whose site the source assumes lay a few kilometers farther south.[1]

Ancient Ono appears in biblical accounts and talmudic sources.[7] It became an independent municipality during the third century: a papyrus dated 297 mentions a councilor of Ono, and Byzantine town lists of the fifth and sixth centuries also identify it as an independent town.[7] The former Arab village of Kafr ʿAnā occupied the ancient site until 1948; modern Kiryat Ono is nearby rather than on that site.[7]

A scholarly interpretation also connects the surrounding area with Ein Tab.[8] An article in Hakirah, citing historian Z. Safrai, identifies Ein Tab as a satellite village near present-day Kiryat Ono, drawing on a sixteenth-century Arabic administrative document about a village in the Ono area awarded by Ottoman rulers to an administrator.[8] The article argues for identifying ancient Ein Tab with Enteba between Lod and Yavneh, supported by the Madaba map, rather than the location east of Zippori used in earlier geographical accounts.[8]

Immigrant housing played a central role in the settlement’s post-1948 growth.[1] A nearby transit camp received immigrants from Iraq, and the camp and the developing urban neighborhood of Kiryat Kiron later joined Kiryat Ono.[2][9] An undated road-system map marks the transit-camp area, existing and proposed elevations, and the cancellation of roads numbered 3 and 4.[10]

In his memoir, Yaakov Dov Raanan describes veterans’ housing as part of this expansion. He recounts that foundations for approximately 100 homes began to be poured in November 1950 for a housing community intended for soldiers approaching the end of their service.[11] He also describes Kiryat Ono and Givat Bracha joining to form a unified settlement consisting largely of veterans’ housing.[11]

A major phase of urban development took place between 1962 and 1967, when modern, higher-density neighborhoods with green spaces appeared alongside older buildings.[12] The cornerstone of the Kiraon project was laid on July 20, 1962.[3] Planned on a 410-dunam site, the neighborhood combined housing, a commercial center, educational institutions, and a telephone exchange around a central park and public buildings.[3] It marked a major step in the transformation of a village surrounded by orchards and fields into a modern town.[3]

Kiryat Ono received city status in 1992.[1] Another phase of growth began around 2000 with apartment towers in Pardes Reisfeld, followed by neighborhoods including Pisgat Ono and Ever HaYarden.[9] In 2008, following the dissolution of the Efal Regional Council, land between Bar-Ilan University and Kfar Azar was incorporated into the city.[12]

Urban renewal subsequently became an increasingly important component of construction.[9] In 2010, none of the city’s 384 building permits were for urban renewal; the corresponding figures were 78 of 428 permits in 2011 and 232 of 460 in 2015.[9] By 2016, Kiryat Ono accounted for a reported 20 percent of homes built nationally through evacuation-and-reconstruction projects.[9]

An October 29, 2023 report included a photograph caption identifying a direct rocket hit on an apartment building in Kiryat Ono.[13] The caption credited a social-media image dated October 27–28 without assigning a precise date to the Kiryat Ono strike; it supplied no local casualty figures or detailed damage assessment.[13]

Kiryat Ono’s population increased from 377 in 1948 to 6,530 in 1951, 8,363 in 1961, and 14,200 in 1969.[1] Much of the early growth followed the accommodation of new immigrants, including people who had arrived on ships classified as illegal immigration vessels.[1] The population reached 23,900 in 2002 and 24,791 on December 31, 2004.[1][5]

Later dated figures include approximately 37,000 residents in 2016, about 36,600 in a 2017 government audit, and approximately 42,000 in a 2020 report.[9][4] The 2020 figure accompanied a socioeconomic ranking of 8 out of 10.[12] A subsequent urban-planning and climate-adaptation profile gives approximately 45,000 residents and places the city in socioeconomic cluster 9.[2]

The later profile characterizes the population as relatively young: 33 percent were under 20, 9 percent were aged 20–29, 39 percent were aged 30–59, and 6.5 percent were 75 or older.[2] Despite the high socioeconomic ranking, the city includes residents receiving welfare services and concentrations of lower-income households along Levi Eshkol and Shlomo Hamelech streets.[2] Approximately 3,000 of the roughly 12,000 housing units counted in 2019 were public housing, much of it in older apartment blocks along those streets.[2]

The housing stock expanded from approximately 9,000 homes in 2003 to 14,000 in 2014.[9] The comprehensive master plan approved in October 2022 projected 23,430 housing units and approximately 64,000 residents by 2030, followed by 28,515 units and approximately 90,000 residents by 2040.[2] These figures are planning projections rather than recorded population counts.[2]

Kiryat Ono’s limited employment base has left it economically dependent on the wider Tel Aviv area, with most residents commuting outside the city for work.[1][2] Some areas designated for employment and commerce had not yet been substantially developed when the urban-planning and climate-adaptation profile was prepared.[2]

In 2017, a plan for the Savyon Junction neighborhood was approved for validation, providing for 1,250 homes and 350,000 square meters of commercial and business space near Highway 461 and the planned Purple Line.[14] It also included 200 dunams of open space and measures to strengthen green corridors and pedestrian and bicycle access.[14]

A comprehensive master plan approved by the city council in 2018 was framed around a projected population of 80,000 by 2040, compared with approximately 40,000 at the time.[6] It included about 10,000 additional homes, consolidated roughly 7,200 homes in plans already approved or under review, and allowed for approximately 2,450 homes through urban renewal, chiefly along Levi Eshkol and Shlomo Hamelech streets.[6] Plans for Neot Ariel Sharon, south of Bar-Ilan University, and Savyon Junction included approximately 3,000 homes and 350,000 square meters of employment space; another 2,500 homes were planned on the Tel Hashomer camp site following its evacuation.[6]

The later planning profile describes extensive demolition-and-reconstruction schemes along Levi Eshkol and Shlomo Hamelech streets and a municipal expectation that older apartment blocks would be replaced within about ten years.[2] Further development on parts of the Tel Hashomer base depends on the base’s relocation.[2] The Ariel Sharon and Young Ono neighborhoods were under construction when that profile was prepared.[2]

Transport planning has emphasized public transport, connections to future light-rail lines, and bicycle paths linking Kiryat Ono with the Tel Aviv region.[6] Municipal work described in 2017 included bicycle routes and traffic arrangements, planned traffic lights at the Levi Eshkol–Los Angeles intersection, and public-transport lanes and bicycle paths associated with the “Fast to the City” project.[4]

The city’s green-space inventory counted 850 dunams within a settlement area of 5,400 dunams, equivalent to 15.7 percent of the area and 14 square meters per person.[2] Approximately half of the public open space lay in the southern area designated for development.[2] Using its population projection for 2040, the planning profile estimated that open space per person would decline to 9.4 square meters following development and population growth.[2] Landscape proposals included stronger green corridors along Levi Eshkol Street, Ben Gurion Street, and Yaakov Dori Road, together with a new southern corridor on land expected to be released from the Tel Hashomer base.[2]

Photovoltaic panels supplied 73 percent of the electricity used by municipal buildings when the climate-adaptation profile was prepared, with panels installed on all schools and sports halls.[2] The municipality aimed to obtain all electricity used by municipal buildings from renewable energy by the end of 2025; this was a target rather than a recorded achievement.[2]

Education facilities include the Jacob Cohen state school in Pisgat Ono, which had approximately 980 pupils in the 2017 government audit.[4] A photograph dated 1982 shows pupils of Kiryat Ono High School performing a rappelling display from a high water tower.[15] A municipal map produced in 2016 combined a street index and a map of the southern jurisdiction area with photographs, local information, and telephone numbers, at a scale of 1:5,500.[16]

Kiraon’s Iris compound consists of seven six-story concrete buildings designed by architect Israel Lotan, containing 260 homes.[3] Their arrangement resembles windmill blades, orienting apartments toward internal and external views.[3] The neighborhood’s 30-dunam park was designed by landscape architects Lipa Yahalom and Dan Tzur.[3] The original scheme included bridges and underpasses intended to reduce road accidents, but those crossings were not built.[3]

Older northern neighborhoods retain detached houses and a rural character across approximately 1.4 square kilometers, roughly a quarter of the city.[2] Central streets contain apartment blocks from the 1950s and 1960s, including many public-housing units, together with four- and five-story residential buildings.[2] The contrast between these areas, the planned Kiraon neighborhood, and later apartment towers reflects successive phases of the city’s residential development.[2][9] Municipal planning has sought to preserve the character of older neighborhoods while permitting urban renewal elsewhere.[6]