CHP-run municipality seals private hospital construction of former health minister

Duvar English

The Üsküdar district municipality run by Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) on Oct. 11 halted and sealed an ongoing construction that belonged to former Health Minister Fahrettin Koca, according to reporting by İsmail Arı of the daily BirGün. 

The construction was for the private Medipol University’s Çamlıca Hospital, which a court has found violated the intended use of the land. 

The Environment, Urbanization, and Climate Change Ministry of Turkey has prepared a zoning plan for Medipol University. The ministry reclassified the 4,164 square-meter area next to Medipol University’s Çamlıca Hospital from residential and secondary education facility status to "higher education facility" status.

The zoning plan report stated that the change was made for Medipol University. The development conditions for the area were set at ground level plus five floors. However, on January 31, 2024, an Istanbul court annulled the zoning plans following an appeal from the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (İBB).

The land in question had previously sparked controversy. A citizen named Emre Özipek filed a lawsuit, stating that the area, now used as a parking lot by Medipol, had been donated to the public by his father for the purpose of building a school.

An expert report commissioned by the Istanbul Anadolu 31st Civil Court of First Instance highlighted that the land was donated to the Ministry of Finance in 1994 to be used as a middle school, but it had not been used for its intended purpose. Özipek emphasized that the land remained unused until the end of 2016 when Medipol University’s Çamlıca Hospital began using it as a parking lot. He further noted that the land had been left idle between 1994 and 2017 and requested its return due to the failure to use it as intended.