The Israeli Silicon Valley on the way to a revolution: "Crazy investment of hundreds of millions of shekels"
Yokneam Mayor Roman Peres does not view the chip giant Nvidia's decision to build its new campus in nearby Kiryat Tivon as a loss for the city. He presents an ambitious vision for Yokneam's development over the next decade, including the construction of over 14,000 housing units and large-scale urban renewal projects.
If there is one company whose name has become almost part of the Yokneam brand in recent years, it is Nvidia. The chip giant employs thousands of workers in the city, has grown there for years, and has become one of the most prominent symbols of the local high-tech park. Therefore, when the company decided to build its next huge campus specifically in nearby Kiryat Tivon, the question was almost inevitable: how did Yokneam miss out on Nvidia? Mayor Roman Peres does not particularly like this definition.
"First of all, even before it starts building its campus in Tivon, it is starting to build a third complex in Yokneam with 29,000 square meters, with a crazy investment of hundreds of millions of shekels," he says in an interview with Maariv. According to him, about 3,000 Nvidia employees arrive daily at the two existing complexes in the city, and he estimates that the new complex will add about a thousand more employees. But Yokneam did try to bring the large campus to itself as well. According to Peres, the city offered Nvidia a complex of almost 250 dunams in the southern part of the high-tech park. The company chose otherwise.
"They made a decision, and I respect that decision," he says. "We need to start looking at these things from a different perspective. There is meaning to regionality. It cannot be that all the development that happened in Yokneam did not affect Tivon, Ramat Yishai, Megiddo, and even Haifa. And it cannot be that development that will happen in Kiryat Tivon will not affect Yokneam. I am genuinely happy for them."
According to him, the distance between the two authorities makes municipal boundaries less relevant than before. The employees who will work in the future campus, he estimates, will also live in Yokneam, especially in light of the large construction plans he is promoting in the city. And the numbers are indeed very large relative to a city that currently has, according to Peres, about 28,500 residents.
More than 14,000 apartments: "Yokneam will not become Petah Tikva"
As part of the framework agreement, about 6,120 more housing units are planned in the city, and according to Peres, about 8,000 additional units are supposed to be added as part of urban renewal projects. If the plans are realized, it will no longer be the same Yokneam as today.
Can a city that prides itself on its greenery grow at such a pace without changing its face? Peres is convinced it can. "I am going to maintain the ratio between green and open space and housing as it is today, 60-40," he says. According to him, more than 60% of the city's area today is open and green space. "We will maintain the same ratio. Both in all the planning we are doing as part of the framework agreement and in the urban renewal, we will maintain the character of the city."
Most of the new construction, according to him, will be dense construction of eight to ten floors. In some points there will be taller buildings, but he rules out a scenario where Yokneam will be filled with towers. "Yokneam will never become either Petah Tikva or Gush Dan," he says. "We will continue to maintain the character of the city, but we will also continue to develop it. A young city like Yokneam, with 60% of the population under 40 and 31% under 17, cannot help but develop."
From electric bus terminal to flying taxis
Even before the flying taxis, Peres talks about a transport solution much closer to the ground. At the entrance to Yokneam, a new transport terminal for electric buses is planned, which is supposed to serve the city and the settlements in the area.
According to him, the municipality held meetings on the subject with the Director General of the Ministry of Transport and the Director General of Netivei Israel, and is now waiting for budget approval by the end of the year, hoping to move to implementation as early as 2027. At the same time, the municipality is in dialogue with the Ministry of Transport about expanding the traffic axes between Yokneam and Kiryat Tivon, among other things in preparation for the establishment of the Nvidia campus.
Peres is aware that continued construction and the establishment of the large campus near the city could exacerbate traffic congestion. "There is going to be a mess if we don't know how to plan things in advance," he says. "And we are planning things in advance." But for Peres, all these are solutions of the present. The future is in the air.
About two months ago, Peres says, he was invited to a meeting on the subject of air transport in Israel. "I was the only mayor there who was invited and they asked me if Yokneam is open to a pilot. I said unequivocally yes." When he says air transport, he means exactly what it sounds like. "Drones and flying taxis," he says. "This is the future."
And for him, it is not just about a distant vision. Peres already wants urban planning to take it into account. "I think that in all the new neighborhoods we are building, we need to plan landing pads for drones from now on," he says. At the first stage, according to him, the change will be felt mainly in the world of deliveries: "Delivery from McDonald's or pizza, or Zara or anything else, will no longer arrive by scooters or bicycles. We must be prepared for this."
The private car, in his opinion, is also about to change fundamentally. "I strongly believe that autonomous vehicles will arrive. This is what will solve our problem of traffic jams and congestion. We won't want to buy cars, because it won't be worth it. We will buy travel packages. A car without a driver will arrive, take you, and drive you."
Simon Alfasi and the economic legacy
Peres was elected mayor after 15 years in which he served as deputy to Simon Alfasi, the man who led Yokneam for 35 years and was identified more than anyone with turning it from a town struck by unemployment into a high-tech hub. The relationship between the two, at least as Peres describes them, remained warm.
At the first city council meeting after his election, he says, he passed a resolution to name the high-tech park after Alfasi and grant him honorary citizenship. "Simon managed the city for 35 years and brought it from a place of unemployment to a high-tech center," says Peres. "I thank him for that, both as a resident of the city, and as a father of children who grew up here, and as someone who has lived in Yokneam for 35 years."
When asked if Alfasi still supports him, Peres does not answer directly. "We meet at events," he says. "I strongly believe that Simon sees what we are doing in the city, the promotion of the city, the development of the city, and he is very proud of us today. I believe in that."
Alongside the compliments to his predecessor, Peres has been dealing since taking office with a financial situation that he says was complex. He says that on March 19, 2024, what he defines as the "cash flow deficit" stood at 103 million shekels. According to the breakdown he provided, the sum consisted of about 20 million shekels of accumulated deficit according to the audited report at the end of 2023, about 51 million shekels of loans to be repaid, and another about 32 million shekels of liabilities to suppliers. When asked about his responsibility for the situation as someone who was deputy mayor for 15 years and part of its management, Peres does not remove responsibility from himself.
"I was in charge of several areas in the city, for youth, young people, welfare and social services, and immigrant absorption," he says. "I do not remove responsibility from myself. I also don't whine. I deal with the complex reality and we are doing everything necessary to balance the budget."
According to him, the municipality is working to increase revenues, reduce expenses, strengthen control, and change work patterns with suppliers and contractors. "Public money is the money of the residents," he says. "Every shekel we manage to save through proper management is a shekel we can return and invest in education, infrastructure, cleanliness, sports, culture, and service to the resident."
The city of 2040
In the end, almost every answer of Peres returns to the same point: he asks to be judged not only by the Yokneam of today, but by the city that will remain after him. He talks about an education plan until 2040, about educational continuity from birth to academia, about new neighborhoods, about the renewal of old neighborhoods, about expanding the high-tech park, about a new business hotel, restaurants and pubs, an electric transport terminal, and about a city that is already planning where tomorrow's drones will land.
The vision is big, perhaps very big for a city of less than 30,000 residents. But precisely because of that, Peres's test in the coming years will not be just how many plans will be approved or how many tenders will be published. It will be whether Yokneam will succeed in growing without losing what made it sought after in the first place, whether infrastructure will catch up with construction, whether young people will really be able to afford to stay in it, and whether a city that plans flying taxis will also know how to deal with the small problems that await the resident under the house.
Peres himself has already defined the metrics by which he asks to be judged: education, the framework agreement, and urban renewal. "I don't manage the city for tomorrow's headlines," he says. "I manage it for the coming years."
