How Is a Planning Implementation Tool Deviated from Its Intended Purpose: Land Exchange or Transfer of Development Rights?

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2026-01-01

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In Turkiye, the primary tools for implementing zoning plans include expropriation, parcel division and consolidation, and land readjustment. Additionally, tools such as barter (property exchange) in protected sites and transfer of development rights (TDR) are employed. Barter involves exchanging privately owned properties in protected areas with Treasury lands but has proven largely ineffective. Internationally, TDR enables the transfer of development rights from conservation zones to receiving zones where densification is encouraged. Although TDR was introduced into Turkish legislation in 2004, it remained unimplemented for years due to the lack of secondary regulations. The Council of State ruled that TDR practices based on plan notes were unlawful. Legislative amendments in 2024 and 2025 finally defined TDR within the Zoning Law and established implementation procedures through a regulation. However, the new framework limits TDR to public service areas, lacks incentive mechanisms between sending and receiving parcels, and disregards the integrity of the planning process. The new regulation introduces no measures to prevent the emergence of multi-story, high-density developments through plan amendments, in development plans that do not permit high-density construction at the individual parcel level. What is even worse is that, beyond allowing such structures, the new regulation makes the existing problem even more intractable by introducing additional density to randomly designated receiving parcels or islands after the plan has been approved. As a result, TDR in Turkiye has deviated from the win-win model seen in Western practice and has instead become a derivative of barter. The article argues that while a genuine TDR system could balance conservation and development, the current regulation fails to curb rent-seeking, fragmented, and inequitable practices.

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https://hdl.handle.net/11511/120309

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Department of City and Regional Planning, Article