President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Tuesday criticized the political parties opposing urban renewal projects during a visit to earthquake-hit Osmaniye. "You see how they oppose urban transformation. One of them is a CHP mayor in Adana who openly says they are against it," the president censured.

Urban transformation, an ambitious project of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government, often draws criticism from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and other members of the opposition. The project, which aims to renew, rebuild or replace decrepit buildings that cannot endure major disasters like earthquakes, proved to be essential once again after the Feb. 6 earthquakes, which claimed thousands of lives in Türkiye’s southeastern region.

The CHP is among the most vocal opponents of the project, which is being carried out across the country. CHP supporters, with the help of several locals, filed lawsuits to halt the transformation projects. For example, in a district of earthquake-hit Hatay province, a court halted renewal projects in five neighborhoods after a lawsuit.

After the deadly catastrophe of Feb. 6, over 100 buildings collapsed, leading to fatalities in those neighborhoods. The government has opposed the ruling, citing potential losses of lives and property in case of a disaster but the court ruling was final. The neighborhoods were declared "at risk" in 2013 by the Ministry of Environment, Urban Planning and Climate Change, which oversees nationwide urban transformation projects. However, protests by locals, who were provoked by left-wing groups, followed the decision.

In 2017, the court annulled the ministry’s declaration. A lengthy lawsuit was concluded in 2022 when the Turkish Presidency’s decision to declare the neighborhoods as at risk, and therefore, in need of urban transformation, was annulled again.

"Urban transformation is a must. I plead to our nation (to approve it) so we won't have to pay a price in the future during such disasters," Erdoğan told reporters in Osmaniye on Tuesday. He pointed out that apartment buildings constructed by the Housing Development Administration (TOKI) did not collapse in the Feb. 6 earthquakes. TOKI oversees urban transformation projects across the country. "People thank us for urban transformation," he highlighted.

Opponents of urban transformation claim locals whose residences will be demolished to replace them with new ones are not properly consulted and the project changes the social texture of the neighborhoods. The government defends that it is absolutely necessary, especially considering the 1999 earthquake in northwestern Türkiye which laid bare Türkiye’s weak infrastructure and lack of sturdy disaster-resistant buildings.

Indeed, urban transformation mostly focuses on buildings constructed before 1999.

In Istanbul, where Türkiye’s next "big earthquake" is expected to hit in the near future according to scientists, the CHP is at the forefront of lawsuits against urban transformation. An urban renewal project in the Esenler district, dubbed the biggest of its kind in Türkiye, faced staunch opposition from the CHP and its Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu. The Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IBB) filed 11 lawsuits against the project which will cover some 60,000 houses. Courts rejected five lawsuits while six others are still underway, according to a report published in the Sabah newspaper.

In 2019, the government rolled out the Urban Transformation Action Plan to demolish risky old buildings and replace them with sustainable living spaces and improve downtown areas as well as historical sites. The plan also includes resettling industrial sites currently located near heavily populated areas.

As land is becoming scarce and worries remain concerning possible major disasters in the country that sits on several active fault lines, Türkiye aspires to speed up the project. Under the plan, separate transformation projects are being carried out depending on various factors, from the preservation of cities’ unique cultural and traditional textures to housing and business needs.

So far, the government renewed at least 3.2 million houses and aims to renew all the old buildings not resistant to disasters across Türkiye by 2035. In 81 provinces, 250,000 houses are currently being "transformed" according to official figures from November 2022. Minister of Environment, Urban Planning and Climate Change Murat Kurum announced last November that some 24 million people were living in houses resistant to earthquakes across the country.

Most of Türkiye is located on the Anatolian tectonic plate, which sits between two major plates, the Eurasian and African, and a minor one, the Arabian. As the larger African and Arabian plates shift, Türkiye is being literally squeezed, while the Eurasian plate impedes any northward movement. Thus, the country sits on several fault lines. The most potentially devastating fault line in the country is the North Anatolian fault line (NAF), where the Anatolian and Eurasian plates meet. It runs from just south of Istanbul all the way to northeastern Türkiye. The NAF has produced devastating earthquakes throughout history.

Over 17,000 people were killed and over 43,000 were injured when a magnitude 7.4 quake rocked the Marmara region for 37 seconds in the early hours of Aug. 17, 1999, with its epicenter located in Gölcük, some 75 kilometers (46.60 miles) southeast of the Bosporus. Three months later, on Nov. 12, 1999, 845 people were killed and nearly 5,000 injured when a magnitude 7.0 earthquake hit Düzce province, about 120 kilometers northeast of Gölcük.

At the same time, the East Anatolian fault line stretches some 650 kilometers from eastern Türkiye's highlands to the Mediterranean, from where it turns southward and meets the northern end of the Great Rift system separating the African and Arabian plates. The strike-slip fault was formed millions of years ago as the Anatolian plate was being pushed northwestward by the Arabian plate.

Meanwhile, western Türkiye is also affected by another minor tectonic plate: the Aegean Sea Plate. An unfortunate tectonic location and a traumatizing history of deadly earthquakes have made the fear of tremors evident in everyday life as Turks are taught how to behave during earthquakes from a young age and many take certain precautions in case a quake suddenly strikes, such as preparing an emergency bag and establishing safety zones at home or work.