Dozens of people lost their lives in the fire that erupted at the Grand Kartal Hotel, located in Bolu’s Kartalkaya ski resort. Even the first images show that no fire precautions were taken. But this is not the only issue. This catastrophe was also a blatant disaster. People have once again fallen victim to the lack of supervision and rent-seeking. However, experts had warned about just such incidents years ago. “Don't do it,” they said: “If you make the changes that (construction) contractors want, you will collapse the fire department. Lack of supervision will increase.”
What paved the way for the nightclub fire in Istanbul’s Beşiktaş in the past year and the disaster in Kartalkaya today? How did the government make regulatory changes for the benefit of construction companies?
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The Regulation on Fire Protection of Buildings was issued in 2007. Experts said the regulation was full of shortcomings. However, the government dealt a major blow to inspection five years after the regulation. A Council of Ministers decision was published in the Official Gazette on April 5, 2012. A series of regulations were amended.
Do you know what the amendments were called? “Regulation on the Procedures and Principles to be applied in the Recruitment of Workers for Public Institutions and Organizations and Regulation on the Amendment of Certain Regulations.”
In other words, they had again created an omnibus law and filled it with the regulations they wanted. And they added an insidious clause that was not noticed by anyone except the experts at the time. That article paved the way for future fire disasters. Because the Regulation on Fire Protection of Buildings was being amended by a single sentence.
What was it?
Paragraph 4 of Article 6 of the Regulation initially read as follows: “The projects shall be approved and implemented by the authorities authorized to issue licenses after obtaining the appropriate opinion of the relevant municipal fire departments.”
They changed it to: “Projects are approved and implemented by the authorities authorized to issue licenses.” In other words, the “opinion of fire departments” was removed.
Because in those years, the government, based on the construction economy, was making every change as the construction companies and state-led TOKİ’s subcontractors wanted. The construction lobby even saw fire measures as an obstacle to them.
At the same time, the amendments prepared by the Urbanization and Environment Ministry under the title “Principles on requesting information and documents from the applicant in occupancy permits” were published in the Official Gazette on April 3, 2012. The amendment reads as follows:
“The administration authorized to issue the occupancy permit shall not ask the applicant for the delivery note and invoice of the materials used, natural gas conformity certificate, fire safety (fire department) report, shelter report, real estate purchase tax disconnection certificate, approval certificate to be prepared by the relevant administration for any visa process, especially the foundation, soil and thermal insulation visas carried out by the building supervision institution, letter regarding the environmental order, letter stating that there is no occupation debt, letter stating that there is no tax debt from the tax offices, receipts of taxes and fees received by the municipality and similar documents.”
After the amendments, several experts warned of and opposed them. One of them was Professor Abdurrahman Kılıç, a faculty member of Istanbul Technical University Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. Kılıç, who passed away in 2021, said the following about the amendment in the 170th issue of the Yangın ve Güvenlik (“Fire and Safety”) magazine:
“In line with the circular issued by the Environment Ministry, fire projects will not be examined by fire department personnel and settlement controls will not be carried out by the fire department. District municipalities will carry out the examination of fire projects and housing controls. The fire department, which is based on three pillars: prevention, rescue, and extinguishing, will no longer have a pillar. More precisely, it will no longer be correct to call such an institution a fire department. Maybe it would be more accurate to call it a return to pumpers. The fire department will only inspect the building after it starts to be used. Even if it inspects, it will only be on paper since it has no authorization. The construction contractors will rejoice and the citizen will be oppressed. There is no country in Europe other than Turkey where projects are not inspected by the fire department. In order to reduce bureaucracy, the Prime Ministry changed the fire regulations under pressure from the construction lobby and TOKİ subcontractors.”
Earthquakes, mining disasters, train accidents, floods, fires... Experts and professional chambers are struggling. Each time they say that the amendments eliminate inspections and that the price will be paid with human lives. But the government's only concern is that companies make money, that construction firms and tourists are free to do whatever they want. They will again blame the latest tragic incident on a few flaws and negligence.