Cabinet okays advancement of new plans to build combined office/residence for PM

The government on Sunday voted in favor of speeding up the timetable to build a new combined office and residence for the prime minister inside the government compound in Jerusalem, according to Hebrew media reports.

The official residence, officially named Beit Aghion but more commonly referred to as Balfour for the street in central Jerusalem on which it’s located, is not currently adjacent to the Prime Minister’s Office, which is in the government quarter near the city’s western entrance.

As part of Sunday’s decision, a steering committee will be appointed to oversee planning on the project, while the Prime Minister’s Office and the Finance Ministry’s account general will draw up an updated plan for building the compound that will be submitted for cabinet approval in the next year and a half, the Haaretz newspaper said.

To help pay for the project, ministers approved NIS 37.5 million in funding, with NIS 5 million to come out of this year’s budget and the remainder to be covered in the 2025 budget, according to the Calcalist financial daily.

In April, the State Comptroller’s Office released a report slamming a decade of inefficiency and delays in renovating the official Prime Minister’s Residence in Jerusalem, which has led to tens of millions of shekels being spent on securing private homes for successive premiers.

Though a plan to establish a new official residence was agreed to in 2014, the proposal has been amended and delayed repeatedly since, and largely shelved in favor of renovating the current building. Work on the current residence did not begin until Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu departed the residence in July 2021, more than a month after he was ousted from office by a coalition headed by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid.

Since then, renovations have been underway at the building complex in Jerusalem, and while in office, Bennett remained in his family residence in Ra’anana. Lapid lived largely in Tel Aviv during his tenure as prime minister. It is not clear how much work has progressed on the renovations in the past three years, though Netanyahu has not lived in the residence since he returned to office in December 2022, largely splitting his time between his private homes in Caesarea and Jerusalem. The comptroller said renovations are slated to be completed by the end of 2025.

The comptroller’s report also noted that despite a plan to initiate renovations on the Balfour residence put in place in 2018, no work began until three years later, when the Netanyahus departed the building after living there for 12 consecutive years. Part of the delay, the report said, stemmed from a disagreement over the funding for renovations for the family’s private residence in Caesarea. Even after such renovations were carried out, the report said, the Netanyahus did not leave the official residence to allow for work to begin there.