Land readjustment process in urban design: project management approach

Abstract

Land readjustment is an essential tool used for the re-organization of urban areas. It aims to convert cadastral parcels into suitable forms of development plots for public and private use according to town planning requirements. Hence, land readjustment method maintains great opportunities to the solution of land-use problems in urban-fringe areas. In Turkey, "Article 18", which is a crucial necessity for planned urbanization, is the most effective land acquisition method used in many cases. Thus, as a rapid urbanizing country, the implementation pace of development plans should be parallel to urbanization pace in order to respond to increasing land demand. Should this pace be kept, necessary urban public areas for better urban life could be provided. From this point of view, project management, which is a vital instrument to control and coordinate a project from inception to completion, should be undoubtedly contemplated for the utilization of "Article 18" more efficiently and rapidly. Therefore, "Article 18" projects could be realized in the desired quality by keeping the balance among scope, time and cost. This study describes not only Turkish land readjustment procedures but also different land readjustment procedures used in various countries (i.e. Germany, France, Japan, Western Australia and etc), discusses the advantages & disadvantages and therefore puts forth the problems of these procedures. In this respect, this study consequently proposes two approaches for land readjustment process in Turkey; one of which is a project management approach to reduce the problems of existing .Article 18. process and the other is an alternative land readjustment process instead of "Article 18" by using project management concepts as well. At the end of the study, a case study for Uzundere District is carried out in order to validate the feasibility of project management approach. Keywords: Land Readjustment, "Article 18" of "Development Law" issued 3194, Project Management, Land Reallocation & Allotment, Urban Land Management.