Expert’s report warns against conversion of now-closed Atatürk Airport into 'nation’s garden'

In a case filed by the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (İBB), a court has obtained a report from an expert panel who ruled that zoning plans to convert the now-closed Atatürk Airport into a “nation’s garden” disregard public benefit and are not in line with urbanization principles.

Tuesday April 04 2023 05:56 pm

The ministry's zoning plan paves the way for the construction of several structures such as exhibition halls, health units, and mosques on the area of the now-closed Atatürk Airport.

Duvar English

The Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (İBB) has previously challenged the Urbanization Ministry’s construction plans to convert the now-closed Atatürk Airport into a “nation’s garden” (“Millet Bahçesi” in Turkish) at the court.

The municipality said that its authority had been bypassed and the construction plans are in violation of the law and public benefit. An expert’s report with regards to the case has been prepared and submitted to the Istanbul 11th Administrative Court, said ANKA news agency on April 4.

The expert’s report said that the ministry had not taken the opinion of relevant institutions with regards to the preparation of the construction plans and that it had not penned any analysis with regards to the infrastructure’s impact.

The expert’s report said that the Atatürk Airport can be of utmost beneficial in “a possible crisis, such as the (expected) Istanbul earthquake.” The report said that if Atatürk Aiport continues to function, it “will offer important opportunities in critical situations in terms of providing the city’s humane needs and transportation, by being a coordination/logistics center and also through the landing of airplanes, in a possible disaster situation.”

The report called for the airport to become operational once again, saying that the public benefit that would come out of it would be much more than “the runaways being used for another purpose.”

The report said that the Urbanization Ministry’s May 2022 dated plans “are not in line with the urbanization principles, the needs of the settlement in the future, planning techniques and disregard public benefit.”

Atatürk Airport, located in the south of Istanbul, was closed to commercial flights after the opening of Istanbul Airport in 2019. Since then, the airport has been open only for maintenance, general aviation, air taxis, business flights and state and diplomatic aircraft.

The Urbanization Ministry then moved ahead with plans to transform a large part of the airport area into a “nation garden,” a name given to large parks built by the government.

The opposition has continuously emphasized that the move to close down the Atatürk Airport wasted a huge amount of public sources. The state, for example, paid 390 million euros to the company running the Atatürk Airport as its contract was terminated earlier than scheduled.