TOKI (Housing Development Administration) has made great strides in the last decades. It has completed the construction of 220,000 houses for low incomes in the last 3 years alone, so post Covid period. 108 projects are ongoing in 45 provinces. This does not include 2113 commercial facilities, 1389 schools, 997 sports halls, 912 places of worship, 269 hospitals, 215 student campuses, 99 primary health centers, 22 universities and 19 stadiums.
During the disasters of recent years, the housing needs in disaster areas (Bartın, Sinop, Giresun, İzmir, Muğla, Malatya, Elazığ, Van, etc.) were completed and delivered to the rightful owners within 1 to 2 years. Since 2000, the total number of houses built by TOKİ is approximately 1.2 million. Together with public buildings, village houses and barns the total number of buildings constructed in the same period is approximately 1.5 million.
95% of the houses built are social housing, i.e. for low- and middle-income people. If you meet the conditions (duration of residence, not owning a house, annual household income, etc.), you apply through the e-government system in your region of residence and participate in the lottery. Except for post-disaster housing, if you apply and qualify in the normal way, you pay for these houses within a state-supported mortgage system. The treasury covers part of the cost of these apartments. Apartments built for middle and upper income groups are sold through demand collection and open sales. As of the end of 2022, TOKİ was continuing the construction of a total of 144 thousand houses and other facilities at 775 construction sites.
In addition, an additional 500,000 housing project for low and middle-income people was launched in 81 provinces within 2 years. The draws for this project are taking place piece by piece. In this project, 20 percent quotas were allocated for young people, 20 percent for retirees, 5 percent for relatives of martyrs and veterans, and 5 percent for citizens with 40 percent or more disabilities.
The new action plan prepared by TOKI in response to the disasters in 11 provinces now includes the construction of 200,000 additional 3- and 4-story apartment buildings and 70,000 single-story village houses in disaster areas. Together with ongoing projects, this means the construction of about 2 million houses in about 2 years.
Turkiye has a strong construction sector. 2 million houses is difficult but not impossible. Our objection here is that this should not be turned into a political show. Otherwise, no one, including the opposition, is saying that this many houses cannot be built. It is state resources that will be using here.
*
In the context of urban transformation, for example, in Istanbul, 179,000 houses have been transformed through TOKI, while 108 projects are underway in 45 provinces, with plans, projects and construction of around 73,000 houses underway. In particular, TOKI is creating huge construction sites where urban planning problems and scattered settlements will be replaced by a new urban plan. Beneficiaries are renewing their houses with state guarantee an support.
However, due to the economic rent generated by this transformation, many projects are stopped by the courts or right holders organize to prevent demolition. For example, the 5 neighborhoods that were mostly collapsed during earthquakes in Hatay were part of the urban transformation plan, but these decisions were annulled by the courts in 2017 and 19. Had these neighborhoods been renovated, Hatay would not have been the province with the highest number of casualties in the earthquake.
The other main problem in urban transformation is the transformation of old neighborhoods rather than large projects for the transformation of almost entire neighborhoods. There is no merging of parcels here, usually each apartment building individually or rarely a few apartment buildings are converted into a housing estate together. These projects are subsidized by the state and beneficiaries are provided with temporary relocation and rental assistance. However, these projects have to be carried out by contracting companies, not TOKI. Apartment owners must agree among themselves, then agree with the contractor, and the plan must be in line with the zoning plan of the neighborhood. Here, there are 14/20 beneficiaries on average in +7/+8 storey buildings. This is where the problem starts. With only economic rent, necesary speed of transformation cannot be reached. Because people do not want the square meters of their apartments to decrease. Or worse, while some of the right holders agree with one contractor, another group agrees with another and the problem goes on and on for years. In a good neighborhood in Istanbul, a contractor can increase an apartment building with an average of 14 beneficiaries to 18 apartments and deliver the work without making a loss. But this is a very complex problem in many neighborhoods.
While the average annual demand for new housing in Turkiye is approaching 850 thousand units, the supply has been hovering around 550 thousand in recent years. This not only leads to a failure to achieve the desired speed in urban transformation, but also causes housing prices to rise. According to the "Population and Housing Survey" conducted by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) for the years 2018-2080, there is a need for 15 million new houses to be built in the next 20 years, add to this the transformation of risky buildings.. Apart from urban transformation and the renewal of risky building stock, the country still has a young population, with around 550,000 marriages taking place annually, the number of students migrating to another city every year is estimated to be around 300,000, while there are hundreds of thousands of families who change cities due to transfer or for other reasons.
