Turkish state agency to build 1 mln new houses

ISTANBUL - Anadolu Agency

The Housing Development Administration (TOKİ) aims to build 1 million houses by 2023, TOKİ head Ahmet Haluk Karabel said, adding that TOKİ had allocated 57 billion Turkish Liras to developing new houses in the last decade.

The volume of construction investments reached $70.6 billion in Turkey by the end of 2012, with the majority of investments made by the private sector.

TOKİ, which was founded in 1924 to support the state in housing development, has been very active for the last decade in renovating slum houses and letting 15 million people have their own houses for small payments, Karabel said.

“TOKİ has built 120,000 houses in Istanbul, 70,000 in the capital city of Ankara, and at least 10,000 houses in other big cities for the last decade. These houses have contributed to an increased housing supply and to keeping rent at a sustainable level,” Karabel added. Forty-three thousand of these houses were for the poorest citizens to be able to pay very low amounts over a long period of time.

“The construction sector players plan to develop more than 7.56 million new houses by 2023. We plan to develop 1 million of them,” Karabel said.