Newsletter Regarding Changes Made with The Regulation on The Amendment of The Implementation Regulation on Organized Industrial Zones
With the “Regulation on the Amendment to the Implementing Regulation on Organized Industrial Zones” (“Regulation of Amendment”) published in the Official Gazette dated 05.09.2024 and numbered 32653, a number of amendments were made and new provisions were introduced within the scope of the Regulation on the Implementation of Organized Industrial Zones dated 02.02.2019 (“Regulation”).
With the amendments, the definition of “Green OIZ” was added to the Regulation as the Organized Industrial Zones (“OIZ”) certified by the Turkish Standards Institute within the framework of the criteria to be determined by the Ministry of Industry and Technology (“Ministry”).
It is possible to argue that the Regulation of Amendment aims to ensure an effective role of the Ministry in many different processes. Furthermore, several changes have been made to zoning and parceling plans, licenses and permits:
• With the amendment made within the scope of Article 41 titled “Consolidation and Subdivision”, additions have been made to the conditions of area consolidation and subdivision. With the arrangements made, production will be started within the periods specified in Article 60 for those in the ownership of the participant in the parcels that will be formed by the Participant after the division, and within the periods remaining from Article 60 for those allocated to the participant, and no sale, transfer or assignment will be made before production is started. If the participant is a company, in order to prevent speculative transactions, no share transfer of more than 49% in total will be made without the approval of the Ministry, otherwise, on the condition of submitting a notarized document stating that the participant agrees and undertakes to transfer the empty parcels to the OIZ at the allocation price on the date of registration of the allocation transaction in the title deed and based on the application of the OIZ, If the participant obtains a partial occupancy permit without completing the building with a floor area of 1/4 of the parcel allocated to him within the periods specified in Article 60, four times the floor area of the existing building is transferred to the participant in the title deed and the empty parcel resulting from the subdivision will be left to the OIZ.
• With the amendment made within the scope of Article 42 titled “Building License, Occupancy Permit and License to Open and Operate a Workplace”, the relevant tax offices are now required to notify the OIZ about the opening of workplaces within the boundaries of the OIZ.
• With the amendment made under Article 43 titled “Principles Related to Structures to be Built on Industrial Parcels,” the term “Floor Area Ratio (FAR)” has been defined, and technical elements concerning calculations related to the principles for structures to be built on industrial parcels have been regulated.
The Regulation of Amendment has also introduced changes in the processes related to allocations, sales, and leases:
• Article 54/A titled “Pre-allocation” has been added, paving the way for OIZs to make pre-allocations with the permission of the ministry. The article explains how the requests will be collected, how they will be evaluated and how the pre-allocation processes will be completed.
• With the amendment made under Article 55 titled “Land Allocation”, land allocation provisions have been amended. Except for the reserve areas determined by the Ministry, all parcels available for allocation must be announced on the “OSBUK” website and the Ministry’s online system on the first Monday of each month, in addition to the OIZ website. In addition, the system of making applications through the online system of the Ministry has been introduced, and the evaluation processes and procedures of land allocation requests and tenders have been explained.
• With the amendment made within the scope of Article 56 titled “Contract Drafting”, the procedure of land allocation contracts has been changed. The regulation of informing the Ministry within the first week of the month following the date of the finalization of the land allocation has been abolished and it has been regulated as a principle to sign the land allocation agreements online. In the event that the land allocation agreement is signed with a wet signature, a copy of the land allocation agreement must be uploaded to the Ministry’s online system within seven days at the latest from the date of signature.
• With the amendment made under Article 58 titled “Title Deeds”, arrangements were made in the issuance of title deeds. The condition of obtaining an industrial registry certificate has been introduced for the issuance of title deeds without mortgage and without a repurchase right annotation to the participants who have industrial parcels in the OIZ, and for the parcels located in the service support area, it has been made possible to issue title deeds without mortgage and without a repurchase right annotation upon obtaining a certificate of occupancy. With the amendments made, the participants in the industrial parcels allocated completely or partially free of charge are excluded from the scope of the privileges regarding the investors who receive investment loans amounting to at least 50% of the fixed investment amount in the parcel.
• With the amendment made under Article 59 titled “Failure to Make Payments on Time,” changes have been made to the content of delayed payment interest applied when sales and service fee payments are not made on time.
• With the amendment to Article 60 titled “Land Allocation Periods and Cancellation of Allocations,” the extension period granted upon application to the Ministry for those who have obtained a building permit but have not received a business opening and operation license has been increased from 2 years to 3 years.
• With the amendment made under Article 61 titled “Transfer to Others”, additions were made to the pre-allocation and allocation agreements to prevent speculative transactions. In addition, it has been added to the article that share changes of more than 49% without notifying the OIZ will be considered as speculative transactions, and sanctions have been regulated in case of speculative transactions.
• With the amendment made within the scope of Article 62 titled “Return or Cancellation of Land Allocation”, the periods specified in Article 60 have been introduced as the upper limit for the period for the participant to withdraw from the transaction in the cancellation or return of the land allocation, and the conditions of the valuation to be made in the return of the price given for the parcel allocation/sale in the return to be made have been regulated.
• With the amendment made within the scope of Article 63 titled “Conditions for Leasing the Participant’s Facility”, while it was considered sufficient to obtain the title deed in the past for the facilities to be leased, the requirement that at least one year must have passed from the date of obtaining the title deed without a repurchase annotation has been introduced. In addition, with the amendment made, it has been explicitly added to the scope of the article that the participants can rent their facilities to more than one lessee and that production will not be required in the leases for the participants in the service support area.
You can access the Regulation of Amendment dated 05.09.2024 and numbered 32653 via the following link:
Eren Üçok
Ayşe Burçak Çoğ
Buyukdere Cad. No: 193/4, 34394 Levent, Istanbul, Türkiye