Turkish court requests environmental report for five-star hotel near ancient coastal city

A Turkish administrative court has requested an environment impact assessment report (ÇED) for the construction of a five-star hotel near the ancient city of Phaselis along the Mediterranean coast, invalidating a previous decision by the Environment Ministry to exempt the project from the mandatory assessment process.

The reports are key to determining the potential damage that a project could cause to its surroundings, particularly in protected natural areas or archaeological sites such as Phaselis, which is one of Turkey's most important and well-preserved ancient cities located next to an untouched beach.

Phaselis is also located within the National Park of Beyda?lar? Olympos and aims to enter UNESCO's world heritage list.

The hotel, named the "Dream of Phaselis" and slated to have 280 rooms, would have been built on the limits of the national park, while a significant part of the facility would be inside the first-degree archaeological site, where no construction is permitted under current legislation. The owner of the project is Rixos, a hotel chain known for its closeness to the government and which recently won a contentious tender for the Golden Horn port in Istanbul.

But the ministry's decision to dismiss the environmental assessment process despite legal constraints had outraged environmental activists and lawyers alike. During the trial process, archaeological inspections carried out by Antalya's Akdeniz University showed that there were many archaeological remains under the area were the hotel is planned to be built.

"The contribution of an ancient city protected under international treaties such as Phaselis to tourism with new archaeological excavations would be much more important than erecting a concrete...