Medipol Zoning Plans of Ankara Train Station Campus Canceled

With the lawsuit filed by the ŞPO Ankara Branch, the zoning plans of the 50 thousand square meter Ankara Train Station campus allocated to Medipol University, founded by Health Minister Fahrettin Koca, were cancelled.

A new legal development took place regarding the 50 thousand square meter Ankara Train Station campus allocated to Ankara Medipol University, founded by Health Minister Fahrettin Koca. TMMOB Chamber of City Planners (ŞPO) Ankara Branch filed a lawsuit with the Ankara 9th Administrative Court regarding the change in the zoning plan of the TCDD land allocated to Medipol. In the statement made by the Ankara Branch of the ŞPO, it was announced that the zoning plans were cancelled.

The statement of ŞPO Ankara Branch titled “Privileged Medipol Plans Cancelled” is as follows:

“Within the scope of City Hospitals, which cause major problems in the whole city and in itself, many public hospitals are closed, their valuable lands in the center are emptied by being disposed of one by one.

It is clear that the policy of city hospitals is a project of capitalizing high public resources with “public guarantees” and privatizing health services in favor of subsidiary companies. In addition, other valuable public lands are donated to capital groups under the name of private hospital investments. Medipol, which has grown rapidly during the AKP rule, is the Tekel Building in Unkapanı, KadıköySGK land in Kavacık, Karayolları land in Kavacık, Atatürk Forest Farm land, KadıköyIt also builds private hospitals on school lands in Turkey, by means of allocations. One of these areas is the area known as TCDD Station Area in Ankara.

06.08.2018/29216 Scale prepared by the Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change on 2, “Altındağ District, Eti District, 19 block 29216 and 10 parcels and Çankaya District, Eti District 11 block 12, 16, 1, 5000 parcels. The area known as the TCDD Station Area was transformed into a "Private University Area" with the Nazım and 1/1000 Scale Implementation Zoning Plan Amendment. The area, which is the symbolic place of the Republic, was allocated to Ankara Medipol University, which was founded three months before the change in plan by the TESA Foundation, founded by the Minister of Health Fahrettin Koca.

Experts said that there is no public interest in this project.

In summary, in the Expert Report prepared within the scope of the lawsuit filed by the Ankara 9th Administrative Court for the cancellation of the said plan change;

• With the transfer of the station area, which is in public ownership, to the ownership of foundations, all services to be provided in the region can be obtained "for a fee" and therefore it is transformed into a "privatized area status",
• The technical and scientific reasons for the plan change have not been clearly stated, and the intervention at the parcel scale does not comply with the understanding of the master development plan, which should be prepared by considering all the needs of the settlements,
• It is stated that the area is subject to planning 10 times in 3 years (2008, 2016, 2018) and that the repeated plans are not used rationally and the changes made at the parcel level are against the principles of holistic planning, public interest and urbanism,
• Within the scope of City Hospitals policies, while many hospitals near the area have been moved, it is against the public interest to allocate the area to "private hospital use",
• While the improvement of social and technical infrastructure is essential in the zoning plans, removing the use of recreation and underground parking area and creating the use of "private university area" disrupts the integrity of the plan and the balance of social reinforcement,
• Foreseeing density-increasing uses in the area (E:1.50, Yençok: 35.50 m) will adversely affect the preservation of the registered historical and cultural texture, thereby spoiling the identity of the city,
• Introducing the use of "Trade Area" in 20% of the planning area will cause urban technical infrastructure problems and increase the pedestrian and vehicle traffic load,
• The area is included in the "open green spaces-urban and regional parks" and "railway/high-speed train use" in the upper-scale plans, and the plan change decisions do not comply with any upper-scale plan decisions,
• After the completion of the Central Ankara Project, which is located in the immediate vicinity of the parcels subject to the lawsuit, together with the project related to the Station Area, it will be seen that the transportation load on the Hippodrome street will increase significantly.
• findings are included. These justifications were found by the Court of Appeals to be “in the nature of taking the judgment as a basis”. Ankara 9th Administrative Court has included these justifications in its decision dated 14.04.2021 and numbered 2021/718.

However, despite the reasons in the Expert Report;

• Obligation to observe the principle of “superior public interest”,
• The new construction conditions brought with the plan change are of superior public interest in terms of not limiting the provision of education services,
• Our case was rejected by the Court, saying, "There is no contradiction to the principles of urban planning in the plan, which is the subject of the lawsuit, for the creation of a university area, which is one of the uses in which the public interest is most evident with its contributions to higher education and society, and it is understood that there is a superior public interest with the function it brings".

Outstanding Public Interest, Returned from Court. City Planners Won!

This rejection decision, which was contested by us, was based on the Expert Report by the 5th Administrative Case Division of the Ankara Regional Administrative Court in its decision numbered 2022/668, in summary;

• The area has a historical characteristic for the city of Ankara,
• It is possible to be subject to planning only for the purpose of preserving the historical texture,
• Ignoring this feature, the fact that a new train station complex has been put into service cannot be accepted as the sole reason for planning in the area,
• Even if the purpose of the old station building has come to an end, the registered buildings in the area are used as museums and exhibition halls, and the public feature that will serve all the people of Ankara is continued,
• Considering the purpose of establishing the hospital complex, which is envisaged within the framework of the use of "Private University", and the purpose of establishing the surrounding health institutions and city hospitals, the reasons for being located in this historical region have not been put forward concretely and objectively by creating needs analysis,
• As a result of the envisaged use decision and the density of construction, the basic researches and examinations on how the quality and characteristics of the area can continue and how the registered structures can be protected have not been carried out within the framework of the zoning plans, which is the subject of the lawsuit,
• Currently, while there are serious traffic problems in the region, it is understood that how the planned use and the anticipated construction will control the additional load on the traffic has not been adequately analyzed.

It was concluded that the use of "Private University Area" was not in compliance with the law in the zoning plans that were the subject of the lawsuit, in which the use of the "Private University Area" was established without sufficient analysis, data and examination regarding the reasons for its introduction, the effect on the historical texture of the area and the additional load it would bring to the traffic. has been done.

The realization of such a functional transformation after the closure of the hospitals serving in the city in order to legitimize the city hospitals is the most concrete representation of the urbanization policies that are inconsistent and contrary to the public interest.

In the 20-year AKP rule, where education and health services have been privatized day by day, low-income citizens have difficulty in accessing these services, and class differences have deepened, one of the most important public spaces in Ankara is being destroyed by these plundering policies.

To protect these values ​​instead of destroying the values ​​that our society has gained for nearly a century; We respectfully announce to the public that we are resolutely continuing our struggle to evaluate areas full of historical, cultural and architectural values, not by allocating them to capital or supporting foundations, but by considering the "real" public interest.