Turkey has opened most of İstanbul’s former military land to construction over the past 19 years, turning large sites once held by the armed forces into high-end housing and commercial projects, the BirGün daily reported on Monday.
Figures cited from the İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality show that in 2006 the city had 171,998 hectares of military land and 111,307 hectares of military security zones. Since then, 41 percent of that combined 283,305 hectares has been removed from military status. Of the reclassified land 90 percent was approved for construction and 85 percent now contains large-scale residential or mixed use developments.
For scale, rezoned military parcels in central districts now total 14.56 square kilometers. That area is larger than eight existing districts of İstanbul: Güngören, Beyoğlu, Bayrampaşa, Şişli, Adalar, Zeytinburnu, Gaziosmanpaşa and Beşiktaş.
After a coup attempt on July 15, 2016, Turkish leaders told the public that military land emptied by reforms would be kept as green space. In the years that followed, the government dismissed more than 24,000 personnel from the Turkish Armed Forces, the gendarmerie and the coast guard through emergency decrees.
Authorities had also detained 163 generals and admirals by July 20, representing about 45 percent of Turkey’s flag officers at the time.
Analysts say the sharp restructuring of senior ranks reduced the military’s ability to retain control over centrally located land, which made it easier for civilian ministries to reassign these sites.
BirGün reported that 15 former military sites in central İstanbul now host completed or ongoing luxury housing and commercial projects. Critics, including urban planners and opposition figures, say the shift accelerated after the coup attempt when land once described by officials as future public green space was instead added to high-value real estate plans.
Major sites listed in the report include the Esenler Shooting Range Barracks at 434 hectares, the Tuzla İçmeler Infantry School at 200 hectares, the Zekeriyaköy Missile Base in Sarıyer at 191.3 hectares and the Hadımköy Gendarmerie Battalion Command in Arnavutköy at 183 hectares. The former Şehit Onbaşı Azim Özdemir Barracks in Çekmeköy now contains a 3,346 unit housing development, while the former Third Army Corps Command site in Maslak contains a 5,259 unit project.
Barış Antik, a member of the İstanbul City Council, called the rezoning of military areas a “major urban crime.” He said the planning process was carried out unilaterally by the government and driven by revenue concerns. He argued that the land, located in a high risk earthquake zone, should have been kept as public green space or as assembly areas for disasters.