President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Wednesday said the government would increase subsidies for urban transformation projects in Istanbul, pledging more financial support to homeowners participating in a flagship program designed to accelerate urban renewal in earthquake-prone zones.
The announcement follows a magnitude 6.2 earthquake that rattled the Turkish metropolis a week ago, sending citizens dashing from shaking homes, reviving memories of a historic quake that devastated the country's southeast two years ago.
The tremor was the biggest in years in Istanbul, which sits just north of a fault line crossing the Marmara Sea. Some 5 million of the city's 16 million residents live in risky homes, data showed in 2023.
February 2023's 7.8-magnitude earthquake was the deadliest and most destructive in Türkiye's modern history, killing more than 50,000 people in the south and leaving hundreds of thousands displaced.
The disaster was followed by ramped-up efforts by the government to add even further pace to urban transformation.
On Wednesday, Erdoğan said they had already succeeded in delivering more than 200,000 houses to displaced victims of the 2023 tremors. By the end of 2025, construction will be completed for 453,000 others, he told a parliamentary group meeting of his ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party).
Overall, some 3.7 million housing units were built across Türkiye, both for owners of crumbling buildings and for low-income families, providing housing for 15 million people. Erdoğan said “transformation” was underway for about 1 million more residences.
In May 2023, the government announced the “Yarısı Bizden” ("Half from Us") campaign aimed at providing financial support to homeowners and business owners in Istanbul who want to renovate or rebuild their properties.
Under the initiative, the government pledged to cover half the cost of rebuilding homes. That included TL 700,000 in grants and TL 700,000 in low-interest loans, as well as TL 100,000 in relocation assistance.
Erdoğan on Wednesday blamed the opposition for blocking efforts to expand the ambitious project but voiced resolve to proceed with it.
“We are making new preparations for urban transformation, whose importance was once again underscored with the latest earthquake in Istanbul,” he said.
He said the total support amount for the Istanbul-focused campaign has been increased from TL 1.5 million to TL 1.875 million. The grant and loan figures have been raised to TL 875,000 each, while the relocation aid has been lifted to TL 125,000.
The latest tremor also revived memories of a 1999 quake that killed 17,000 near Istanbul, Europe's largest city, which also spans across the Bosporus into Asia.
Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change Minister Murat Kurum said about a third of the 1.5 million buildings in Istanbul deemed at risk "require urgent transformation – and we have no time to lose."
