‘Another zoning amnesty required for urban transformation’

ANKARA 

The Parliamentary Earthquake Commission has requested for a zoning amnesty to be limited to urban transformation in order to solve the property problem of illegal structures.

The Commission also reported that around 6.7 million houses need to be retrofitted or rebuilt.

The Commission’s report included details on urban transformation in Türkiye and stated that assuming the average size of an independent section to be transformed is 150 square meters, the cost of 6.7 million independent sections is calculated as 6.8 trillion Turkish Liras, excluding the support provided under the law.

When the cost of expropriation and financial support are included, it is estimated that approximately 10 trillion liras worth of resources will be needed.

Of the 489,576 public service buildings in the country, 195,830 need to be reinforced.

In the report, the suggestion of a new zoning amnesty for the solution of property problems to accelerate the transformation drew attention.

Stating that the ownership rights of some of the immovable properties not belonging to the building owners creates problems in the transformation process, the report reminded that with the two zoning amnesty laws enacted in the past years, Treasury lands were sold to those with illegal buildings based on certain criteria.

In order to ensure that the urban transformation works can be carried out rapidly without causing adversities to citizens, there is an urgent need to resolve the issue related to ownership with a legal regulation, limited to the regions declared as urban transformation areas, the report said.

The report called for the establishment of a special budgeted Urban Transformation Presidency with a public legal entity for rapid transformation.

It also recommended that specialized courts, which employ technical personnel as assistant judges, should be established for the fast resolution of lawsuits filed in urban transformation procedures.

The report also advised upon providing interest, credit support and incentives to strengthen urban transformation and pointed out that in housing loans, interest should be determined based on 50 percent of the interest rate.