Planning, Restrictions Building Land Permits Confiscation on Use and and Home Access Demolitions Introduction 87 plans and master plans for cities and villages including construction according to those plans.297 Section 34(1) of the Law requires a detailed planning scheme in order to permit building. Military Order 418 annulled Local Planning Committees that had allowed for community participation in the zoning process of Palestinian villages in favor of a more centralized system that removed Palestinian representation in the decision-making bodies.298 Instead, the Civil Administration’s Local Planning and Licensing Sub-Committee performs these functions.299 Furthermore, Military Order 418 divided residential spaces into two categories depending on the relevant planning scheme: villages with detailed planning schemes (Special Partial Outline Plans) and areas where the general mandate plans apply (Regional Outline Plans). Special Partial Outline Plans In the 1990s the Civil Administration devised Special Partial Outline Plans for nearly 400 villages in the West Bank.300 Special Plans were invented by the Israeli Civil Administration and advanced as appropriate planning in Area C.301 In practice, the Special Plans restrict the zoning and planning rights of Palestinians to less than one percent of Area C: the only part of Area C where the Israeli Civil Administration permits Palestinian construction.302 Special Plans for Palestinian villages in Area C are inappropriately restricted, have not adapted to population growth and, in many cases, exclude some of a community’s pre-existing houses. Special Plans consist of an aerial map of the village issued by the Israeli Planning Authority demarcating the boundaries of the plan and usually constricting the main built-up area of each community.303 Within the boundaries of the Special Plans, 297 Municipal boundaries or ‘zones’ within which building by Palestinians is permissible were frozen to those demarcated as such under the British Mandate in the 1940s: RJ/5 is the regional plan for Jerusalem and the southern West Bank, and S/15 for the northern West Bank. Natural growth surpassed these Mandate-era boundaries long ago. See: BADIL and COHRE, Ruling Palestine. 298 OCHA, Displacement And Insecurity In Area C Of The West Bank. 299 OCHA, Displacement And Insecurity In Area C Of The West Bank. 300 JLAC, Concealed Intentions: Israel’s Human Rights Violations Through the Manipulation of Zoning and Planning Laws in ‘Area C’ (Jerusalem, May 2011), 19. 301 Nothing similar exists in Jordanian Planning Law. OCHA, Restricting Space: The Planning Regime Applied by Israel in Area C of the West Bank (December 2009); available from http://archive.ochaopt. org/documents/special_focus_area_c_demolitions_december_2009.pdf; accessed 23 April 2013. 302 The Israeli Civil Administration prepared Special Plans for only a small minority, 16, of Palestinian villages now located completely in Area C. Another, some 80, Special Plans were prepared for communities partially in Area C. In total, Special Plans cover less than one percent of Area C in which 56,000 Palestinians currently reside (down from 200,000 to 320,000 prior to 1967). See: OCHA, Restricting Space. 303 JLAC, Concealed Intentions: Israel’s Human Rights Violations Through the Manipulation of Zoning and Planning Laws in ‘Area C’, 19.