Shock and confusion as Türkiye seizes homes of earthquake survivors

Written by Seda Caglayan and Burcu Caracas

SAMANDAG, Turkey (Reuters) – Habib Yabar felt lucky that his home in southern Turkey withstood last year's devastating earthquake. Then a text message appeared on his phone in October informing him that the government would take ownership of the apartment.

The letter sent to Yabar, 61, announced that the titles to his property in Hatay province would be transferred to the treasury under an amendment to the urban planning law that is set to affect thousands of earthquake survivors.

Urban Planning Minister Mehmet Ozhaski said in early February that the government needed new powers stipulated in the amendment to speed up the redevelopment of neighborhoods in towns severely damaged by the earthquake, which destroyed a large area of ​​the southeast of the country on February 6, 2023.

The Hatay region, located in the far south of the Turkish mainland and bordering Syria, suffered the greatest amount of damage in the deadliest earthquake in the country's modern history. Since then, the reconstruction process has fallen behind ambitious deadlines set by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

According to the regulation, approved in November, the purpose of the expropriation was to create “reserve construction areas,” a temporary measure to speed up the reconstruction process. She added that those affected would be entitled to obtain a property after paying the construction costs, without providing details about the financial burden.

While earthquake insurance is mandatory in Turkey, the rule is not always enforced, and insurance often covers only a small portion of the costs of rebuilding or purchasing new properties.

Interviews with nearly two dozen residents, attorneys and local officials show that thousands of homeowners were caught off guard by the takeover plans, with many learning on social media that their properties would be affected.

Like Yabar, dozens in his hometown of Samandaj received text messages even before the amendment was passed in November.

Five months later, the government has still not informed affected people how much they will pay, what will happen if they cannot, any compensation they may be entitled to, and exactly when and for how long their property titles will remain in government possession. The people who spoke to Reuters said.

“It's like going to a restaurant where they offer you a dish, but you don't know the price,” said Ecevit Alkan, head of the Hatay Bar Association's Environment and Urban Law Committee. “You have to pay whatever the bill is.”

Reuters spoke to four homeowners and two lawyers in the Hatay districts of Samandag, Defne and Antakya who filed lawsuits with the Hatay Administrative Court to block the orders.

The Ministry of Urban Planning and Erdogan's office did not respond to Reuters' questions. Several opposition parties submitted parliamentary questions requesting more information from the ministry about the new law, but they remained unanswered.

Yabar lives with his wife, adult son and daughter in a makeshift tent. At least 215,000 Hatay survivors live in camps or tents.

The retired civil engineer had been saving money to repair his two-storey house. With ownership now transferred to the government, he cannot begin work. The house is scheduled to be demolished.

Yabar, among those who filed suit, denied that the building was beyond repair.

“We can rebuild our homes ourselves, and we don’t want a dime from the state.”

Homeless in Hatay

Just over a year since a devastating earthquake killed more than 53,000 people in Turkey, hundreds of thousands of survivors are still living in makeshift homes such as containers and tents.

Residents and lawyers said most of the affected owners have been living with acquaintances or in temporary shipping containers since the quake destroyed or damaged their apartments and have not been told when the new buildings will be ready.

Others were left homeless due to seizure notices. Hatice Altinuz said she and her adult son, Ahmet, had to move from their damaged apartment in Antakya, Hatay, because the building is located in a protected area that has been largely cleared for reconstruction.

“The authorities did not provide us with a container to live in because the building we were living in had not collapsed, so I moved to my daughter’s container house,” Altinoz said.

Antakya residents Omar and Delay Dollar said they learned through social media that their five properties were in a specific area, where there are only a few buildings.

“My family and I have worked hard to own these assets,” said Delay Dollar, 57, a businessman. “But it is now unclear what the future holds.”

Nearly 44,000 homes would replace the relocated properties, the federal government-run Hatay Governor's Office said on its website in February. It did not provide figures on how many people's property would be seized in the operation and did not respond to Reuters' questions.

In total, Erdogan promised to build 254,000 new homes in the province, but so far fewer than 7,300 of them have been completed, data from the governor's office show. Last year, an official told Reuters that money constraints and high prices were to blame for the delay.

Alkan, a member of the bar association, said approximately 50,000 people would be affected by the property seizure, based on the population in neighborhoods designated as protected areas in the province.

In Samandag, city mayor Refik Erilmaz said he welcomed the government's plan to establish a modern bazaar and new housing in declared protected areas.

But he said it was wrong for the government to send text messages to property owners in his town without explaining the project or the legal and financial arrangements.

“Government authorities have failed to provide a satisfactory explanation to the public, which is a problem,” Erylmaz, of the main opposition Republican People’s Party, said in an interview.

Some residents believe politics play a role. Hatay is an opposition-run region where Erdogan is keen to make progress in local elections scheduled for March 31.

The speech he gave in the province on the first anniversary of the earthquake was widely interpreted as a veiled message that reconstruction aid would flow more smoothly with the ruling party's administration.

Erdogan later emphasized that reconstruction efforts did not differentiate between government supporters and opponents.

Lawsuits

With information scarce, homeowners and lawyers who spoke to Reuters expressed mistrust and feared the state would keep the property if the owners were unable to pay.

The new amendment to the Disaster Risk Areas Transformation Law gave the ministry's Urban Transformation Directorate broad authority to allocate private properties as reserve construction areas without first obtaining the owners' approval.

Orhan Ozen, a lawyer in Samandag, said the law violates property rights and does not specify how owners will be protected after their property is handed over to the treasury, despite promises of a smooth rebuilding process.

Official data showed that the Urban Transformation Directorate has so far declared more than 200 hectares of land as protected areas in Hatay Province.

Ozen, who filed lawsuits to reside on two plots of land in Samandag, said the designation includes the city's most valuable properties.

“The balance between the public interest and citizens is being ignored,” Ozen said, adding that the lack of detail in the law had created uncertainty, including what would happen to the new property if the owner died before it was paid off.

In one of the appeals seen by Reuters, the Ministry of Urban Planning said the residency application should be rejected on the basis that the plaintiffs only have rights over individual properties, not the broader area designated by the ministerial decision.

The central market in Samandag is among about 1.6 hectares in the area taken over for regeneration under the plans. Ali Tas, who runs a toy shop in the market, said he was willing to work in a container for a while if the market eventually looked good.

But Hassan Fahmi Jili, a 56-year-old doctor, said neither he nor his neighbors, whose offices and shops operate in the market but are scheduled to be redeveloped, have given their consent. He was among those who filed a lawsuit.

“There are a lot of doubts. Will the state provide us with a property in the same location, on the same plot of land, of the same size?” Fahmi Cili said, looking angry.

(Reporting by Seda Caglayan and Burcu Karakas, additional reporting by Umit Bektas; Editing by Jonathan Spicer and Frank Jack Daniel)

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