Current Practices and Issues of Land Readjustment in Turkey and the Requirements for Value-based Approach Adoption

Management of urban development processes is closely linked to urban land management and policy. Many tools such as zoning applications, zoning rights transfer, expropriation, and taxation can be applied together or separately in urban land management, and the success levels vary according to countries and settlements. In Turkey, as is the case in many other countries land readjustment is based on areal approach. According to this approach, zoning lots are created with zoning applications where up to 40% of the cadastral land area is deducted as development readjustment share and 10% share for public facilities under the Zoning Law No. 3194, and that this application has many shortcomings. Among these shortcomings, in general after the land readjustment (LR) area-based the increase in the value of building plots after the implementation is not at the same level, and in terms of wealth and value increasing. It was determined that an unfairness among owners. In another hand the value increase is very high in some of the cadastral parcels taken into a planning area, and much lower in some of them. This problem leads to objections by the right holders in a planning area and most of the plans, especially in big cities and coastal areas, are cancelled through the judicial process, and large delays in the completion of infrastructure services and construction activities cannot be prevented. Implementation of land readjustment works by providing equality on an area basis causes municipalities and other public institutions many problems in practice, and it is inevitable for citizens to experience unfairness caused by unfair distribution. It is foreseen that these problems can be eliminated by shifting from the area-based approach into value-based ones in zoning applications. In order to solve these problems, since the 80's, the necessity the adoption of land readjustment based on value approach has been emphasised in many policy documents, especially in development plans. In fact, despite many draft legislation having been prepared on this issue, none of these draft legislation prepared for different purposes have been passed and moved into the implementation stage. The Main advantages of the value-based land readjustment implementation are to cover the cost of implementation and to share with public authority the increment value of plots after the implementation. However, the value based approach requires the determination land values before and after the application, how much of the increased value increase will be allocated to the occupant, compensation for loss of rights and redistribution of zoning parcels principles in a clear and transparent manner. It also consists to develop efficient and productive use of zoning planning process, and especially the valuation methods and approaches to be fully integrated. In these circumstances, the theoretical basis of the application of value based LR and its implementation in selected countries were examined in the first step in the study. In a second step a survey-interview with Ankara Metropolitan and all district municipalities as well as other public institutions with zoning enforcement authority (such as the Ministry of Environment and Urban Planning, Housing Development Administration, Privatisation Administration) based the current situation and the need to adopt value based approach in land readjustment, policy recommendations was conducted. This approach was helpful in comparing value-based implementation opportunities in the implementation of zoning from the technical, financial, valuation, justice and human resources aspects. Based on the results of the study, the outlines of the duties, authorities and responsibilities of the real estate valuation experts were also put forward from the aspects of realisation of appraisal studies of the parcels and cadastral parcels to be formed after the land readjustment in accordance with objective and international valuation standards, analysis of property values to facilitate application, conducting detection of parameters that can affect the value directly or indirectly and impact points rationally.