Negotiation tendencies of inhabitants in urban regeneration areas: Gaziosmanpasa/Sarigol Province

Urban regeneration projects aiming to offer permanent and sustainable solutions for the neighbourhoods that have been slummed due to physical, economic and environmental reasons, mainly it is based on a process that has several actors; and residents of the neighbourhood, public and private spaces constitute the backbone of this process. Urban space where social, physical, economic and political dynamics are intervened with each other, by time has been transformed through political and socio-economical dynamics. As a result of regenerations occurring in the slums of urban space, it has also become a must to intervene into those spaces. Peculiarly for our country, a real planning to be advanced as an answer tothis matter should take the issue of the healthy and livable urban housingissue in all its parts alias of with social, economic and cultural sides and more bring urban, regional, and even national regulations to the definitive spatial whole. Rapid urbanization and industrialization process started in Turkey after 1950s has resulted in increasing immigration and illegal housing zones. Therefore, the need for housing in urban areas since 1980 and results required, illegal construction has also increased very important. Unplanned construction in these areas and urban areas of the image, and the prevention of pollution of urban transformation has become necessary to re-gain. This requirement naturally made it necessary legal regulations. Especially after 2000, planning projects makes up the agenda to solve this problem. Although legal and administrative measures have been taken into account based on urban regeneration concept; solutions for challenges we face during implementations are not defined and improved well enough. The government has always been in the process of "recognizing" the slum areas formed by informal processes, and in this respect many laws have been enacted and the slum areas has been legalized. Nevertheless, in the approach of the state, the shanty was regarded as a type of settlement that should be prevented and the slums was considered as a sign of underdevelopment and poverty and was considered as something that should not be a slum in a developed, developed and modernized city. This view is also being used as a reason for the urban transformation projects in Turkey to come to an end in the post-2000 period. One of the best examples of this process is the Gaziosmanpaşa municipality. When it is evaluated in the light of national policies and Istanbul specific, it has become a complicated, problematic district that includes social dimension as well as spatial damages caused by these problems spread over a long period which has been neglected for a long time due to investments made in the central cities. For this reason, it has become an area that needs to be intervened. In fact, dynamics such as unhealthy building stock as the main problem, neighbourhoods that have been identified with crime, marginalisation, and low income rate have been shown as reasons to legitimize urban regeneration. Those factors underpin determinist causation, too, especially about discussing several shanty districts in the context of urban regeneration. By this way, urban regeneration has been promoted as a legitimate reason to use public force and demolishment. Later on, different models and measures have been implemented during compromise according to landholders' legal rights within spaces or landholders have the right of making their own decisions through their shares. While explaining 'compromise' as a quite sophisticated and dynamic process, different kinds of landholders in the urban regeneration spaces have been addressed. In this point, the process of negotiation that takes place during the processes of urban transformation emerges as an important means of participation. This process; Central government, local government, various experts, private and voluntary sector representatives and local people, especially the actors in different characteristics within the local people. However, in our country, the point where the projects are generally weak is; Is the point of participation of local people. More importantly, those who live in the area are judged by their ownership structure, and it is seen that equal rights participation of every rights holder is not possible and they are applied from top to bottom. For this reason, communicative planning is a model that can be used to reconcile differences and provide flexibility. The establishment of such a structure will open the way for an understanding that makes the differences part of a whole. The aim of this study is to analyse and evaluate the findings extracted from landholders' different experiences about urban regeneration project that has been claimed to be one of the biggest among others, in Sarıgöl neighboorhoods, in Gaziosmanpaşa, İstanbul. By this way, it has been discussed whether tendencies at the compromise level have significant differences. In order to test tendencies at the compromise level, qualitative and quantitative observations have been used as well as questionnaires and in-depth interviews, and results had been measured based on the research question. Problems stemming from top-down planning system that has been applied for long in Turkey have been analysed from the perspectives of both the planning process and the behaviours of the actors living in those areas through the studies carried out in the areas of sample urban regeneration selected according to certain criteria. Those areas are compared with the compromise process in Sarıgöl neighbourhood. As a result, it has been observed that some groups have lost due to being landholder by the end of urban regeneration. The level of legality, in other words, "ownership of right" is determinant in many topics from the management of the process by categorizing the inhabitants in the areas of urban regeneration to the rate of allowance through the project. How much the inhabitants of the areas can interfere with the process depends on the documents and papers they have. Accordingly, urban regeneration is carried out depending only on the level of legality in the ownership, excluding the other dynamics in the shanty districts. With the proposed approach, it is aimed to transform urban slums into modern urban dwellings. In this study, which discusses the compromise process in the urban regeneration applications, Gaziosmanpaşa Sarıgöl neighbourhood is analysed. Through the studies in this area, both compromise process and the actors' attitudes are analysed. Negotiations are a vehicle of communication and stakeholder management. As such, they can play a vital role in assisting policy-makers to obtain a better grasp of the complex issues, factors and human dynamics behind important policy issues. In theory, it is aimed that all the stakeholders who has the rights through the compromise process would appropriate the project, and that an atmosphere of trust between the public bodies and the local community would be formed; and thus urban regeneration project would be healthily based on participation and transparency. However, in practice, things have been quite different. It is not possible to suggest that local neighbourhood residents are not included in the decision-making process. There is a model, and the residents living in the area get their shares according their ownership in this model. That's to say, the participation of the right holders in limited to either agreeing or disagreeing with the proposals. Although it is emphasized that a negotiation process is applied in the area, it is clear from the data collected from the in-depth field interviews that the process is actually far from negotiation. The method used in the process is based on forcing the right holders. It is observed that it is a process of which rules are set by the public authorities, and that it is a model far from the principles of negotiation. In conclusion, in this context, urban regeneration practices are seen as a serious threat for shanty districts. The belief that urban regeneration could be a solution to physical and social problems of the neighbourhood is getting lost. A practice of urban regeneration suppressing the local residents through relationships of ownership is under implementation. The fact that the residents living in informal settlements like Sarıgöl have tried to solve their problems in solidarity has strengthened the statement of belonging to their residences and has helped them to be identified with the area. While the meaning of legal status having changed due to policies developed differently for individuals with a certificate of ownership, individuals with a certificate of land allocation or individuals without any certification, the urban memory of the neighbourhood has also started to disappear indirectly.