Portakal Çiçeği Parkı

About Portakal Çiçeği Parkı

Portakal Çiçeği Parkı fills the Portakal Çiçeği Vadisi (Orange Blossom Valley) in Aziziye Mahallesi, Çankaya, a green corridor between Cinnah Caddesi and Hoşdere Caddesi on the edge of Ayrancı. It lies close to Botanik Parkı, and paths from the upper valley lead up towards Cinnah Caddesi and that park. The park is the product of one of Ankara's first urban renewal projects. In the 1970s and 1980s the valley was a gecekondu (informal housing) neighbourhood. In 1991 Ankara Metropolitan Municipality, landowners and private partners set up a company, PORTAŞ, to redevelop it without costly expropriation: part of the land went to housing and shops, and the rest became public green space. According to a 2006 study by landscape architects at Ankara University, the project covered about 111,000 square metres, of which 80,000 were reserved for green space, and the first phase in the upper valley, about 30,000 square metres, was completed in 1997. That first phase was laid out largely as lawn, with walking paths, viewing terraces and group seating areas, a fountain pool with a wide open space around it, a planted pool in the middle of the valley ending in a cascade, and a children's play area. Turkish Wikipedia gives the park's total area today as 44,700 square metres, 40,000 of them landscaped, with a pool and a small sports ground. It is a quieter neighbourhood park than its better-known neighbours, and easy to combine with a walk through Botanik Parkı.