an amnesty law authorized for more than 40 years the illegal construction of housing

The collapse of thousands of buildings in seconds in Turkey revealed poor compliance with anti-seismic standards. While many property developers have been arrested, an amnesty law has also contributed to this catastrophic situation. Since 1984, this law has allowed individuals to regularize their situation if they lived in non-compliant housing or housing built without a permit.

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This law was intended for individuals but the promoters rushed into this legal breach. Periodically, usually before the elections, Parliament votes on these amnesties. All you have to do is pay registration fees to be in good standing. This amnesty was then facilitated in 2018, at the instigation of the President Erdoğan. This last expanded the text field.

The responsibility of the president Erdogan

Recep Tayyip Erdogan welcomed this expansion in 2019 during a visit to the Maras region, the epicenter of the earthquake. “With this amnesty in the construction sector, we have solved the problem of 144,556 inhabitants of Maras”, then explained the Turkish president.

In a year and a half, more than 7 million dwellings have been regularized, bringing in some 4 billion dollars to the state coffers. According to a count released by Bugra Gökçe, Deputy Secretary General of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, nearly 300,000 buildings have been regularized in the provinces affected by the earthquake, in particular in Adana, Hatay, Gaziantep or Kahramanmaras.

The town planners have sounded the alarm in vain, the construction frenzy has not been denied. The lessons of the 1999 earthquake have not been learned. Moreover, on Monday, February 6, when the earth shook, the Turkish Parliament was precisely seized of a new amnesty law.