IMM carried out the demolition of Akın Apartment in Kartal, one of the 318 buildings with a ‘0 percent earthquake safety’ rate. Ekrem İmamoğlu, who witnessed the demolition, said, “We are not just demolishing buildings here.
In fact, we are destroying the mind that is not resistant to earthquakes with the mind we put forward. And we show our determination. From now on, we will show this determination at every point.” Emphasizing that the solution is “We will build 1.5 million houses in Istanbul”, İmamoğlu emphasized that he has not been in power for 21 years and said, “When we came to power, we came to power faster, bigger and by including everyone… We have served all our municipalities from the AK Party, MHP, IYI Party, and Republican People’s Party.” We will manage this process by adding
We will not put anyone out. We will not be the Ministry of Urban Planning, which prepares zoning for the barracks on the edge of the Bosphorus. We will not be the Ministry of Urbanization that gives development to cafes by the Bosphorus. We will be ministries, metropolitan municipalities, district municipalities dealing with the earthquake problem of Istanbul. We are here for him.”
Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IMM) Earthquake Risk Management and Urban Improvement Department detected “318 buildings that are likely to collapse where they stand” with the rapid scanning method throughout the city. One of these buildings with a “0 percent earthquake safety” rate, Akın Apartment Building, built in 1980 at number 14, Kartal Orta Mahalle Ordu Sokak, was demolished in the witness of Ekrem İmamoğlu, the President of IMM and the candidate for the vice president of the Nation Alliance. Kartal Mayor Gökhan Yüksel, İBB Deputy Secretary General Dr. Buğra Gökce and Özlem Tut, Head of the IMM Department of Earthquake Risk Management and Urban Improvement, accompanied İmamoğlu during the demolition.
“ITS NAME IS; TAKE RISKS”
Reminding that they started the rapid screening process in Istanbul in the first year of their appointment, İmamoğlu said, “Actually, it’s called taking risks. We took the risk. Knock on the door of their house and reminding people of the earthquake as soon as it is not felt, maybe it may seem like a political risk. Unfortunately, these studies also exist. But we have been knocking on doors ever since, as we accept this as our duty. We knock on the doors of tens of thousands of buildings. But it is a pity that up to 70 percent of people in some districts did not let us into their buildings. And they didn’t want their buildings checked. But we persistently continued this process. In Istanbul, we identified 318 buildings with 0 percent earthquake resistance, like the building you see behind me. And we started action on these 318 buildings,” he said.
“By START DESTROYING THESE HOUSES, WE ARE RESCUEING 8 THOUSANDS OF OUR PEOPLE FROM THIS THREAT”
Stating that as a result of their work, they reached the number of risky buildings in Istanbul, which is approximately 90 thousand, İmamoğlu said, “We continue to scan quickly. With the February 6 earthquake, our citizens, who unfortunately did not knock on our door until that day, unfortunately did not contact us despite all our announcements, and even did not let us into 7 out of 10 buildings despite knocking on our door, are now knocking on our door. We are trying to catch up with them at this point of determination. There are approximately 3000 independent sections in the 318 buildings we are talking about today. Do you know what 3000 independent partitions mean? When you multiply the number of people living in Istanbul and Turkey today, it means the lives of 7-8 thousand people. By starting the demolition of these houses now, we are saving 8,000 of our people from this threat.”
“WE DID NOT DISCRIMINATE OWNER-TENANT; WE PROVIDE 4 THOUSAND 500 TL LEASE AID”
Saying, “Are we just doing a quick scan, detecting the buildings we can enter, and starting a process like this?” İmamoğlu shared the following information:
“No. First, we warn our district municipalities. We write to our district municipalities. Some municipalities say, ‘We do not take action.’ Some municipalities say, ‘Please take action on our behalf.’ Some municipalities say, ‘Okay, we will do that.’ No matter what the circumstances, we, as Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, We continue. Of course, we have now activated the process we carried out with the Municipality of Kartal, based on the cooperation request I mentioned earlier. So are we just stuck with that? No. After making this determination persistently, we sat down with my technical friends and talked about this: So it’s easy to say to people, ‘Get out of your house’. And remember; Until recently, the rent assistance determined by the Ministry of Urban Planning was 1,500 liras. We also know that 1,500 lira has no value on the scale of Istanbul. At that time, we made our technical preparations and brought to the agenda of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, “We want to make rent aid of 4 thousand 500 liras”. It is about providing rent assistance to people in buildings with 0 percent strength, whose justification and basis we have determined. So what did we do here? We did not differentiate between the owner and the tenant. We also donate 4 thousand 500 liras to the tenant, and we also help the owner. We took one more step. We do not leave the tenant on the street by giving a 12-month rental support. We support it as a budget and we establish a relationship mechanism that helps people find a home.”
“WE WILL START AN INTEGRATED MOVEMENT ON ISTANBUL”
Emphasizing that Istanbul needs a careful and integrated process regarding the earthquake, İmamoğlu reiterated his view that the issue can be resolved with a sense of mobilization. Emphasizing that the IMM, district municipalities or ministries alone will not be enough to solve this problem, İmamoğlu said, “We say that now, I am saying this on behalf of the Nation Alliance, I am saying this on behalf of our Presidential candidate – which we have consulted – especially in Istanbul. We see it as a model. Let’s know this clearly: You can see how much trouble the process in which we live in the Southeast, affecting our provinces and affecting approximately 14 million people, puts our economy in trouble. Its total costs are over $100 billion to date. Over time, the cost will increase even more. Because we also lost our people. Now we say with this concept; We will start an integrated movement for Istanbul. We will support it with a special law. All relevant ministries are in the same structure, Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality is in the same structure, district municipalities are in the same structure, at the same time, the sector; The construction industry, the building industry, the manufacturers of construction materials, the insurance industry, the banking, and the finance industry will all be involved in the process.
“WE CAN’T SEAT AND TALK ABOUT THE PROCESS WITH A HUMAN, COMMON MIND…”
Pointing out that the whole process can be resolved with the support of citizens and professional chambers, İmamoğlu said, “We will make quick decisions in this integrated structure. In Istanbul, there are sites and structures whose urban transformation process lasts 8-9-10-11. When I said this, you said, ‘You know, you said you can solve it in 5 years…’ Friend, the reason why I said, ‘I will solve it in 5 years’ is this: If we sat at a table in 5 years, talking about the process in a humane, common mind, if you had given us this opportunity, today we will be all over Istanbul. We would have come a long way in a time when the construction industry and the insurance industry took the responsibility in an environment where we provided finance to our people at 0 interest in every neighborhood. With the model applied by the current government… I’m not saying ‘he didn’t do anything’. Done. But there are mistakes, there are deficiencies. It’s not integrated. We will take this matter to a supra-political process. Look, no one should doubt that. And we will start the journey to quickly save Istanbul from the risk of earthquakes,” he said.
“WE HAVE TO FACE THIS BAD INVOICE, WITH THE BAD PHOTO”
Expressing that other countries in the world have experienced similar disasters, but they have not suffered any loss of life with the measures they have taken, İmamoğlu said:
“It is the buildings that kill our people in an earthquake, not the earthquakes. I’m not saying this, scientists are saying it. We have to face this painful bill, this painful photo. God forbid, God bless. We wish and hope that the Istanbul earthquake will be late. We pray that we will take our measures as soon as possible. The issue I mentioned concerns our nearly 90 thousand buildings. Besides, let me underline that we need to take action on our other buildings, but with reinforcement but with other models. Unfortunately, we produced this inventory all together over decades. But we also have to find the solution. The solution is not to make such a commitment after 21 years of power by saying, ‘We will build 1.5 million houses in Istanbul’. If you still say “will,” no, it can’t be. We didn’t say “will”. Here we did, we do, and when we come to power, we will manage this process by adding all our municipalities from the AK Party, MHP, IYI Party, and Republican People’s Party. We will not put anyone out. We will not be the Ministry of Urban Planning, which prepares zoning for the barracks on the edge of the Bosphorus. We will not be the Ministry of Urbanization that gives development to cafes by the Bosphorus. We will be ministries, metropolitan municipalities, district municipalities dealing with the earthquake problem of Istanbul. We are here for him.”
“WE WILL WORK WITH OUR STRENGTH FOR THIS PROCESS THAT WE CALL ‘THE PROBLEM OF SURVIVITY’”
Saying, “We are not only demolishing buildings here,” İmamoğlu said, “Actually, we are destroying the mind that is not resistant to earthquakes with the mind we have put forward. And we show our determination. From now on, we will show this determination at every point. I remind you: Just yesterday, a building collapsed on the heads of its people in Kartal, and we lost dozens of lives there. And there are other buildings in Istanbul that are under this threat, like these 318 buildings. In that sense, this work is a mobilization process. We, in order not to bring our nation to its knees after the earthquake, not to bring our economy to its knees… When we experience such destruction in a city like Istanbul, we all kneel before the world. God bless. For this reason, we will work with all our strength for this process, which we call the ‘survival problem’, and it will be our primary issue. I am certainly making all these words here as a citizen of Istanbul, as the Mayor of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, and also as an individual of the Nation Alliance, on behalf of our Presidential candidate, Mr. Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, and on behalf of the Nation Alliance. In order to show our determination, we will watch this destruction soon,” he said.
“USKUDAR OWN THEIR OWN…”
After his statement, İmamoğlu also answered journalists’ questions about the agenda. The questions of journalists and İmamoğlu’s answers to those questions were as follows:
– President Erdoğan made a statement last night in Bağcılar from the squares. He stated that the opposition and marginalized circles sabotaged the process with the lie of “rental transformation”. Do you have an answer to this?
“Statistics don’t lie. Turkey and Istanbul have statistics in the middle. I tell them what they know very well… Let them put all that aside. They are from Üsküdar. Let him walk to the Kuşkonmaz Mosque and ask the Minister of Urban Planning why he has developed the construction of those barracks. Let him leave everything aside, ask this. I take serious words and serious matters into consideration. I do not take into account unjustified and unfounded matters. So let him do what I say and find the answer to it. Punish what is necessary and whoever does this. After that, I will take some topics and words seriously.”
– The President had some statements about you in the same speech, without giving a name. “Local administrations gave plenty of promises in the elections, but they can’t fulfill any of their promises at the moment. They also shelved our projects or left them unfinished. Instead of serving Istanbul, they are walking around like Turist Ömer”…
“NO EYES AND HEARTS TO SEE WHAT WE HAVE DONE”
“The second word is one that I will not take seriously. I can’t answer it either. But I can say this regarding the first claim. I give an example; I said, ‘I will take the mothers of 0-4 year old children to travel with their children free of charge, as they cannot visit this city, cannot see it, and cannot live due to the economic difficulties they have suffered. Today, over 350 thousand mothers use our card. One; why is he using it? Because this country has economic problems. Solve it. But we did it by promising solutions to economic problems. I will give a second example. ‘You were handing out milk? Where? We were distributing milk to nearly 107 thousand children when he said, ‘We can’t see,’ but we didn’t show it. Because we were giving our aid in an order where the giver and the recipient could not see. They do not have the eyes or the heart to see what we do, as they have an understanding that shows everything, helping and supporting people by hurting them, as if they were their own blessings. Thank God, if we said “100” and made a hundred promises, God is witness that we have implemented at least 75-80 of them. Yes; We may have shortcomings. But we are in our fourth year. In the coming years, we will fix these as well. My sadness is this: They keep their 25 years and my 4 years equal, equalize them and compete accordingly. That’s a good thing. In 4 years, we have demonstrated a talent and hard work that exceeds their 25 years. Happy me.
After the explanation and question-answer session, the demolition of Akın Apartment started.
WHAT HAPPENED?
IMM teams went to 107,77 buildings across Istanbul since 2019 for identification purposes. The teams could not enter 70 percent of the buildings they went to until the end of 2022, as the owners did not give their consent. Informing the public about the buildings within the 30 percent of the analyzed slice, İmamoğlu announced that 318 buildings were identified throughout the city, “if you touch it, it will be demolished”. İmamoğlu also stated that apart from the buildings in question, the number of buildings coded as D and E and containing high risk is 1.525 within the 30 percent segment. After the Kahramanmaraş-centered earthquakes that occurred on February 6, the number of applicants to the “quick scan” service of IMM increased. The total number of applications since 2019 has been 152 thousand 449. In line with the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Council Decision dated 22.11.2022 and numbered 1342, a monthly rental allowance of 4,500 TL for the owners living in the said 318 buildings and 4,500 TL per month for the tenants for 12 months will be provided.
Source: (BYZHA) – Beyaz News Agency
