Hostage to high rises
A stampede for Girne high-rise planning permissions ahead of the introduction of stricter town planning rules has swallowed up garden plots, leaving low-rise neighbours hostage to development or resigned to sell. ANNE CANALP offers a glimpse of the first
NEW town planning regulations for an area spanning over 4,000 hectares from Girne to Çatalköy will cap building heights to four and three floors north of the western bypass and Semi Sancar Sokak.
Construction in the wider regions of Karaoğlanoğlu, Ozanköy and Çatalköy will now be limited to two floors, with strict protection for the village centres including Bellapais, where a single-floor limit is proposed in one area of the village.
The 23-month study found that roughly half of the affected land remains vacant, much of which is in the Karaoğlanoğlu and Ozanköy to Çatalköy areas.
The remaining land has mostly been developed, with the rest of it used by the military and government departments or allocated as forests and heritage sites.
Central Girne spans an area of 361 hectares, a mere 98 of which are vacant and boasts the highest population density, of 325 people and 117 homes per hectare.
New regulations are also forecast to limit planning permissions for the first time according to caps for the density of population and homes and hotel projects will be limited to 150 beds.
More importantly, new planning permissions will mandate provision of car parking spaces for all businesses and the repurposing of properties as discos or workshops, for instance, will be strictly controlled by the town’s first zoning laws.
The plan includes population projections, a transportation master plan between Girne and Çatalköy and recognises a “business and trade corridor” along main connecting roads.
Action includes coastline surveys and a flood risk master plan, pedestrian and cycle paths, four new parks and the revision of the Girne Tourism Port.
Kaşgar Court will be converted to a park once a water treatment plant is relocated and Girne State Hospital is scheduled to be relocated and upgraded.
Girne Mayor Nidai Güngördü said: “I would like to see the relocation of the fire station for the construction of a four-storey car park since parking is one of the town’s very real problems.”
Plans also suggest the relocation of Ozanköy’s shooting range.
Improvements in Karaoğlanoğlu’s trading estate may prove problematic as many plots are privately owned but centralisation of animal husbandry in one area will continue.
Plans for an expanded solid waste station are believed to have met with opposition already but upgrades to electricity, water and telecommunications infrastructure are forecast along with the possible relocation and expansion of schools and a state special education centre.
New schemes for the protected old harbour and Turkish quarter to preserve, develop and revitalise the area suggest tax incentives or collaboration between owners and banks for property restoration.
beautiful gardens. I used to enjoy the view with a beer and a book on my balcony. All we will have now is rubbish and exhaust fumes if cars can even get down our street with four blocks of 16 flats and two more of 20 behind us.”
East of the historic quarter developers have snapped up large plots of land behind the Yazıcızade Mosque for apartment projects, which now dot the area from the Girne Tourism Harbour to the Hirondelle roundabout.
Three more houses and their gardens are set for demolition to make way for more apartment blocks opposite the Göçmen corner store, already a congested shortcut on the edge of the Turkish quarter.
A high-rise hotel is planned next to Girne State Hospital, which itself is slated to be relocated while more high-rise developments dwarf the District Office.
Girne Initiative activist Halil Paşa warned that more such developments could sprout up in the coming years. “Building permits are valid for three years, so some are still in the pipeline,” he said.