Turkey plans to rebuild 40 percent of the country’s 19 million residential homes in a 20-year project that will cost $400 billion, Environment and Urban Planning Minister Erdogan Bayraktar said, Milliyet reported.
The government brought X-ray machines from Germany to scan all housing units in the country free of charge to determine whether they are structurally sound following the Oct. 23 earthquake in the eastern province of Van, where more than 600 people died in Turkey’s worst temblor since 1999, Bayraktar told reporters in Istanbul, according to the newspaper.
A bill expected to be approved at the Ankara parliament in January would give building owners four months to tear down sites that the state determines to be at risk and the government will do the demolition if landlords fail to act within that period, Bayraktar was cited by Milliyet as saying.
Landlords won’t be able sue to prevent demolition, Bayraktar said, according to the newspaper. Stakeholders in a building will have to choose to unanimously agree to rebuild, sell their shares to a majority that has support from two-thirds of owners or, failing both, turn over the property at a state- determined fair-value price to the government, which will give the land to the Housing Development Administration of Turkey for rebuilding.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said three days after the Van earthquake that the government would introduce a bill to tear down structurally unsound buildings, illegal housing and squatter homes.
To contact the reporter on this story: Emre Peker in Ankara at epeker2@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Louis Meixler at lmeixler@bloomberg.net
via Turkey to Rebuild 40% of Homes for $400 Billion, Milliyet Says – Bloomberg.