LND VLUTION ISSUES OF EXPROPRITION PPLICTIONS IN TURKEY by Tahsin YOMRLIOGLU, Bayram UZUN & Recep NISNCI Department of Surveying Engineering Karadeniz Technical University it Trabzon, Turkey The Seminer on Compulsory Purchase and Compensation, September 6th to 8th 2007, Helsinki University of Technology, Helsinki, Finland B CKGROUND Turkey has a population 68 million (as of 2002 data). 66% of them live in cities and towns. In terms of population, Turkey is the second largest country in Europe. Turkey has 81 administrative provinces and seven geographical regions. The land right s covering person's properties is protected by the Turkish Constitution. ccording to this; ownership right is a kind of right in which the owner has the authority of using the subjected goods freely within the restrictions of law. uthority of using and getting benefits is only be restricted by public benefit. Cadastre is compulsory which carry out by the General Directorate of Land Registry and Cadastre. The Directorate of Land Registry and Cadastre is responsible for all tasks related to land registry and cadastre. 1055 Land Registry Offices, spread out all the provinces and sub-provinces throughout the country, are tasked to perform contract and registration transactions concerning all real estates, to keep land registry books regularly and the government will be responsible for all the damages arisen from keeping such registers according to the Civil Law. The main unit isa land parcel and a registration book which linked by a unique land parcel ID. It is a parcel registrations system which based on boundary surveying process on the field. ll legal rights which parcel has including landowners information are registered on the registration book under the given parcel ID. 1
RURL L-TO TO-URBN ccording to the Land Registration ct of 1934 in Turkey, all land parcels were registered with their existing boundaries which were mostly irregularly shaped. Hence, when carrying out a development plan, some technical and legal issues arise. The limitation of financial, human and technical resources mostly restricts land ddevelopment options in a certain ti project ttime as well. The government, therefore, has difficulty in controlling rural to urban land use change to provide the appropriate land for both public and private sector requirements. The municipalities have to implement the zoning plans according to implementation programs section by section for the whole of the detailed development plans. Unless the subdivision plan is prepared with respect to the detailed local plan, the building permission for a parcel is not given. cadastral map www.jeodezi.ktu.edu.tr/tahsin Prof Dr Tahsin YOMRLIOĞLU, Karadeniz Teknik Üniversitesi, Jeodezi ve Fotogrametri Mühendisliği Bölümü, Trabzon 2
zoning plan www.jeodezi.ktu.edu.tr/tahsin Prof Dr Tahsin YOMRLIOĞLU, Karadeniz Teknik Üniversitesi, Jeodezi ve Fotogrametri Mühendisliği Bölümü, Trabzon www.jeodezi.ktu.edu.tr/tahsin Prof Dr Tahsin YOMRLIOĞLU, Karadeniz Teknik Üniversitesi, Jeodezi ve Fotogrametri Mühendisliği Bölümü, Trabzon 3
LND C CQUISTION In order to provide sufficient new plots for urban needs, some land acquisition methods are practiced by Turkish government. The objectives of these methods include the provision of basic public services and other aspects of infrastructure to urban uba areas aeasundergoing gdevelopment. e e In Turkey, most of these land related developments are performed by municipalities using urban land development plans and zoning regulations. ccording to Development Law (ct no:3194) Development plan is constituted by using three methods: 1. Voluntary, 2. Land Readjustment, 3. Expropriation. a) Land acquisition by Voluntary method Voluntary land acquisition method is usually applied when a landowner wishes to obtain a construction permit from local authorities. The basic principle with the method is to re demarcate existing cadastral parcel boundaries according to the rules of zoning plans. In regard to zoning requirements, the suitability of a cadastral parcel is examined by municipalities. If the checked land parcel does not provide the requirements (e.g. minimum length and width), the landowner should find out some alternative solutions to provide zoning requirements. Boundary ex-changing B B B Land subdivision X consolidation. 1 2 3 4
b) Land acquisition by Land Readjustment method ccording to LR method, when there is a need to develop an area, firstly, a development plan is prepared by the municipality. Then the area is subdivided into an appropriate pattern of streets, parks, schools, and sites for other uses. Within site blocks formed by the streets, new lots are allocatedfor privatedevelopment development. Publicuseareasareuse are, then, calculated in the planned streets, parks, and so forth and comparing it to the project area. Each cadastral parcel is converted into building lots. BEFORE FTER G H I B F C E D I H G G I B C C D D I C C,D D F F E E 's old land parcel B's old land parcel Public area 's new land parcels contribution redistribution B's new land parcel I's old land parcel I's new land parcels c) LND EXPROPRITION From the government perspective, the compensation method provides a practical solution to land acquisition, because it is a short cut method that is easy to implement by the force of the act. When the government needs the land for public constructions, such as building a new highway, hospital, dam, etc. the land expropriation method is basically used. ll compensation procedures including land valuation are carried out by The Compensation ct which was enacted in 1983 in Turkey. Some changes are made in the content of this act in 2001. The compensation method can be used by the government institutions authorized by the act. s long as they prove that individual land is needed for public use, they can bargain with landowners for compensation. In case of agreement on the price, individual land is transferred to public authority. Otherwise, the price is determined by court. However, in many cases, landowners object to the compensation amount determined by court. They mostly argue that the value does not reflect the real value of their property. This has always resulted in prolonged litigation in courts (90%). 5
The main steps in priv vate land acquisition process in Turkey ll Steps for plot and ownership identification completed ll assets on plots identified and inventory prepared ddresses of all owners for each plot obtained Valuation commission established, each plot is visited, all agencies contacted as specified by the Law to provide information relevant for land valuation Negotiation commission established Land owners contacted to attend negotiations Land owners non responsive Land owner certifies disagreement No agreement possible Land owner refuses to certify disagreement Owner is notified that case will be submitted to Court Court Land owners attend negotiations greement on land transition reached Road to acquisition open TURKISH EXPROPRITION CSES IN THE EUROPEN COURT OF HUMN RIGHTS (ECHR) There are some Turkish expropriation cases that have been involved in the ECHR between 01 January 1992 and 30 March 2003. The numbers of total expropriation cases are decided by the Court are 354 out of 1.357 cases. Table 1. Distribution of expropriation cases in ECHR with respect to institutions Expropriating Number of Percentage (%) uthorities the cases National Water Board 206 58.0 National Roads and Highways 107 30.3 The Provincial Private dministration Offices 11 3.2 Municipalities 9 2.5 The Ministry of Construction and Settlement 8 2.3 Ministry of Defence 7 2.0 National irports 6 1.7 TOTL 354 100 6
It seems that within ten years almost ¼ land compensation cases of total files which related Turkey has been examined by the ECHR. Distribution of number of cases in yearly and the applicants were paid the following aggregate amounts for pecuniary damage by Turkey s expropriating authoritiesisis given as follow. Years of Cases Number of Cases The total pecuniary damage (EUR) 1992 140 1,042,134.- 1995 7 669,796.- 1996 13 6,755,569.- 1997 20 2,399,567.- 1998 19 2,271,984.- 1999 40 3,163,591.- 2000 14 1,630,370.- 2001 44 785,614.- 2002 36 249,059.- 2003 21 550,678.- TOTL 19,518,362.- It is not the European Court of Human Rights task to rule on the land valuation and assessed by the valuations committee and determined by the domestic courts. That is to say the value of the land is not reassessed by the Court. The Court examines only whether a fair balance has been maintained between the demands of the general interest and the requirements of the protection of the individual's fundamental rights in all cases of expropriation Types of cases Types of cases Number of the cases Delaying in payment of additional compensation 344 Seizure without an official expropriation 9 De facto expropriation 1 Total 354 7
CONCLUSIONS Many expropriation processes have been brought to the courts by landowners because compensation payment did not satisfied them as good enough. The origin of this problem is the determination of land value in order to obtain the real price. Significant number of expropriation implementations cause disagreement between the state and owners. With the process of be part of the EU, this national problem of Turkey will turn in to a part of international law. It is because of the fact that the lawsuits against the expropriation implementations in Turkey are started to be brought to the European Court of Human Rights. In this study, the cases related dto Turkish expropriation in ECHR have been examined for a ten years period of time. It has been seen that a quarter of total cases in the ECHR are all about Turkish compensation issues. fter all these, Turkish authorities have realized this issue then some modifications have been done in the current law in order to reduce the number of objections to expropriation in courts. Greetings from Trabzon, TURKEY Thanks for your listening Professor Tahsin Yomralioglu Karadeniz Technical University, GISLab, Trabzon Turkey 8