Sarıyer Development Action Plan (SDAP) is the first district-level development of broad participation that was established in the district of Sarıyer, Turkey.
Problems and Purpose
Sarıyer Development Action Plan (SDAP) is the first district-level development of broad participation that was established in the district of Sarıyer, Turkey. It is an initiative created by the administration that took office in 2009 and it aims to increase civic engagement is based on participatory democracy. The main aim of this plan was to “build a contemporary and happy city”[1]. The problems the SDAP aimed to solve were mainly the problems created by the unplanned urban development in Istanbul.
The city faces problems to this day with insufficient infrastructure, high disaster risk, and poverty; as well as deficiency in housing, transportation, environment, and health[2].
[1] Sarıyer Municipality, 2010: 30
[2] Sarıyer Municipality, 2010: 11
Background History and Context
The history of the SDAP is tied to efforts of the Turkish government in the late 2000s to forge closer ties to the European Union (EU). Turkey was accepted as a candidate country to the EU in 1999 under the European Neighborhood Policy, but the process of Europeanization of Turkey has not been a straigtforward one[1]. According to Yılmaz (2016), Turkey’s Europeanization efforts have been in three phases. The last phase, from 2006 to 2011 consisted of both Europeanization and de-Europeanization effects on policies at the same time because of the problems between the parties and Turkish government’s frustration with integration demands[2]. The SDAP was one of the policies that aimed Europeanization and was created under the effort to become a part of the EU as the municipality believed that regional and local administrations were influential of the implementation of EU legislation[3] and the EU processes boosted democratic and effective local governance[4].
Turkish legislation and traditions are the reason for this plan to be incentivized by the municipal government. It is defined as the municipality’s duty in the Municipality Law to provide services in various areas such as urban infrastructure, geographic information systems, environment, emergency aid, housing, culture and art, tourism, and so on[5].
Apart from the relationship with the EU, The SDAP aims to improve life conditions in the areas of I) urban infrastructure and environment (physical, economic and social development) II) social policies, culture and arts (creating quality urban life and boost social welfare), and III) tourism (to achieve economic boost within the municipality) to find solutions to the problems in the district that were created by unplanned urban development[6]. The SDAP was created by the municipal government that took office in 2009, which was under the main opposition party CHP (Republican People’s Party), and the main political figures for this plan were the mayor of Sarıyer, Şükrü Genç and his team Seçkin Özdemir and İnan İzci. This suggests that politics played a role in application of the SDAP as the metropolitan city’s mayor was from the incumbent party AKP (Justice and Development Party) when some plans were not accepted by the city or government agencies.
[1] Yılmaz, 2016: 147
[2] Yılmaz, 2016: 152
[3] Sarıyer Municipality, 2010: 12
[4] Sarıyer Municipality, 2010: 21
[5] Municipality Law, 2005, c 3, s 14
[6] Sarıyer Municipality, 2010: 30-31
Organizing, Supporting, and Funding Entities
The improvement of a district is under the responsibilities of the municipal government under the Municipality Law. Thus, the Sarıyer Municipality was the main stakeholder for the SDAP to be planned as well as its implementation. The SDAP was initially formed as an umbrella for relatively small-scale projects that are planned to be done in the district by universities, civil society organizations and the private sector, thus the participants of each specific project vary. As each stakeholder has a different level of knowledge and expertise, their participation in the projects changes in accordance with the specific goal of the specific project. To give some examples, for building the Eco-Municipality Service Building, the Regional Board for Preservation of Cultural and Natural Heritage (public agency), and the Directorate of National Estate (public agency) were participants in addition to the municipality. For the Earthquake Master Plan, universities, the Governorate of Istanbul, the Governorate of Sarıyer, and the Municipality were working together. For the establishment of Sarıyer as an Eco-city, NGOs as well as universities, and various ministries participated to the project. Each project’s planning differed in accordance with the project as some included legal responsibilities, groundwork, and just building project development.
Participant Recruitment and Selection
Most of the information about the design of the SDAP comes from limited municipal government sources, and cannot be independently verified. However, according to a government report the plan was organized first in 11-13 January 2010, in Istanbul University, located in Sarıyer and the meeting of planning was open to the public. Although it is not stated in the reports how many people participated in the planning; representatives of the public, civil and private sectors, academics, mayor, the members of municipal assembly, and Sarıyer citizens have attended this meeting. The Mayor of Weilburg, Germany was also present at the meeting to share experiences with a similar project. After the participants were offered a presentation of the situation of Sarıyer, workgroups were formed to negotiate upon goals to be achieved and opinions they had about the SDAP[1]. The workgroups submitted reports regarding the solutions they have found for the problems. The process after the 3 day meeting was as follows: thematic sub-workgroups were created and met every 6 months to discuss the development plans and time frame for the plans to be achieved. These groups have submitted reports which were analyzed by the executive council and the plans were finalized in accordance to the proposals of the workgroups.
That said, the SDAP has gradually moved away from its original participatory roots. In 2017, the SDAP was updated to include more participation from local bureaucrats to the exclusion of the general public[2]. After the 3 days meeting in 2010, no open to public workshops were organized until 2020. In this workshop that was organized in the same way as the one in 2010, the participants were the mayor, representatives from different political parties who are in the Sarıyer City Council and the Municipality, representatives from various NGOs and professional organizations, and experts. Although not specified by whom, the meeting was moderated[3]. It is important to note again that how the participants were selected is not disclosed either in the reports or news pieces.
[1] Sarıyer Municipality, 2010: 31-32
[2] Sarıyer Posta, 2017
[3] Sarıyer Posta, 2020
Methods and Tools Used
The participation to the SDAP planning meetings were open to everyone. During the meetings of 2010 and 2020, different workgroups were formed in accordance with the participants’ areas of concern and expertise and the workgroups provided reports on what they were expecting to be achieved in the district and sub-workgroups were formed from the participants who will meet every 6 months to discuss the projects and see implementation. The reports written by the sub-workgroups were submitted to the SDAP General Executive Council (GEC) which is composed of representatives of different stakeholders; organizations and groups, city council, neighborhood associations, universities, and public and private sector. Different commissions were established to oversee implementation as well as monitoring and management in accordance with the fields the participants of the commissions[1]. The projects are implemented through three strategies: 1. Those in the scope and responsibility of the municipality 2. Those belonging to other public, private, and civil society organizations 3. Those in need of action on a provincial and national level[2]. SDAP has been revised each year in accordance with the annual report published by the GEC.
The Municipality made a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis in order to achieve their goals for the SDAP. Although the reports do not provide the processes of the SWOT analyses, this suggests that the Municipality had the final say in projects written by the commissions and the workgroups.
[1] Sarıyer Municipality, 2010: 47
[2] Sarıyer Municipality, 2010: 48
What Went On: Process, Interaction, and Participation
The SDAP consists of different projects in different areas and is a work in progress, and the implementation and decision-making processes are done in order to achieve the participation of different stakeholders. Some examples of the commissions are education, culture and arts, social policies, and environment. The workshops of commissions are done under three meetings that aim to I) detection of problems and needs, II) policy proposals to solve the problems, and III) deliberation between the stakeholders. There are different stakeholders for each individual project, and if we take the environment commission of 2021 as an example, the commission consisted of experts working for the municipality as well as academics, engineers, civilians, and government agency officials. For the workshops that the commissions, all the agencies first come up with the problems the municipality faces from their own professional perspectives and they come up with solutions to the problems detected as a commission[1]. Although the annual report for 2021 has not been published yet, the older annual reports of the municipality suggest that the projects mentioned (whether finished or still work in progress) are considered to be a part of the SDAP[2] and even not all, many projects decided by the committees and GEC are done.
[1] Sarıyer Municipality Directorship of R&D, 2021: 11-23
[2] Sarıyer Municipality Financial Services Department, 2019: 5
Influence, Outcomes, and Effects
The main resources for this plan are the annual reports of the municipality (although only some of them are available), and two SDAP reports published in 2010 and 2021, which do not give information about the effects and influence in the district other than the list of the projects accomplished, and the commission reports that has the policy proposals, without clarifying how many of the proposals were achieved, if ever or how they were achieved. One other problem with the reports on the municipality website is the fact that almost all of the reports are in Turkish, which shows the de-Europeanization of the municipality since the beginning of the SDAP. Thus, the influence and effects of the projects under the umbrella of SDAP are not transparently put out to the researcher.
The only data that can be found on the SDAP that is at the beginning of the program, 2010, is the one found in the SDAP report of 2021. According to the report, out of the 209 individual projects that were aimed to be accomplished by SDAP 2009, 131 were either successfully accomplished or in the process of being built and 78 projects were not started[1]. The projects accomplished and not started are listed in the report[2].Any specific information about the decision-making processes and commissions has not been published.
[1] Sarıyer Municipality, 2021: 13
[2] Sarıyer Municipality, 2021: 261-262
Analysis and Lessons Learned
One of the problems pointed out by the reports was the hardship the Municipality faced regarding finding transparent and current data[1]. In order to solve this problem, during the meetings of the commissions as well as the GEC, data found by the municipality have been distributed to the participants, which can be questionable whether or not the data was transparent. Although the information about what the municipality changed or did to overcome the problem of data finding is not explained in the reports, the incentive of a “Data Storehouse” was established for the municipality to gather its own data[2].
As the municipality, Sarıyer was governed by the main opposition party, the CHP (Republican People’s Party) whereas the metropolitan municipality, Istanbul was governed by the incumbent (Justice and Development Party), the difference in political affiliation has created a problem for the municipality to achieve its goals in the first decade of the SDAP. The decisions about the district are under the jurisdiction of the Municipality but the big-picture problems of the city such as traffic or the Bosphorus Bridge are under the jurisdiction of the City. Thus, the mayor of Sarıyer, in one of his interviews stated that some projects were not allowed to be done by the metropolitan municipality[3]. The situation may have changed after the local elections of 2019, when the mayor of the metropolitan municipality was elected from the CHP. Yet, there is no information about the shift (if any) in the reports or news articles.
The main sources for the participant selection are the reports published by the Municipality and news pieces published in the Municipality Newspaper, Sarıyer Posta. None of these resources give a clear explanation regarding participant recruitment. The SDAP encourages participation and is the first incentive to increase participation on the local level, yet, both the reports and the news pieces lack transparency regarding the numbers of the participants, the ratio of their backgrounds, how the participants of workgroups were selected, and if they were representatives for the population in the district or not. It is not disclosed why some academics, NGO representatives, and business people were on the committees and not others. Also, it is important to mention that some steps of the SDAP were not publically participated, as seen in 2017. Thus, the incentive of the SDAP is the participation of all to make the district a better place for all, but who decides what will make the district better, or the dynamics between the participants in the decision-making processes are unknown.
[1] Sarıyer Municipality, 2021: 23
[2] Sarıyer Municipality, 2021: 51
[3] Boğazlıyan, 2015.
See Also
References
1. Boğazlıyan, Esra. 2015. “Sarıyer Belediye Başkanı Genç: 299 Projem Var, Yaptırmıyorlar”. HaberTürk. (February 10, 2024)
2. Sarıyer. Municipality. 2010. Sarıyer Development Action Plan SDAP. Istanbul: Strategy Development Directorship. https://sariyer.bel.tr/ckuploads/ckfiles/actionplan.pdf?time=1556286606190. ( January 21, 2024)
3. Sarıyer. Municipality. 2022. Sarıyer Kalkınma Eylem Planı SKEP. Istanbul: Strategy Development Directorship. https://sariyer.bel.tr/ckuploads/ckfiles/SKEP%202021%20Kitapcik%20Revizeli-14.03.2022.pdf?time=1647251365223 (January 21, 2024).
4. Sarıyer Municipality Directorship of Research and Development. 2021. “Çevre Çalıştayları Sonuç Raporu”. Istanbul: Strategy Development Directorship. https://sariyer.bel.tr/ckuploads/ckfiles/%C3%87EVRE%20%C3%87ALI%C5%9ETAYLARI%20RAPORU_17.12.2021.pdf?time=1639745378572 (February 10, 2023)
5. Sarıyer Municipality Financial Services Department. 2019. 2018 Faaliyet Raporu. Istanbul: Strategy Development Directorship. https://sariyer.bel.tr/ckuploads/ckfiles/2018%20faaliyet%20raporu.pdf?time=1558104760747. (February 11, 2024)
6. Unattributed Writer. 2017. “SKEP Güncelleniyor.” Sarıyer Posta. (February 11, 2024)
7. Unattributed Writer. 2020. “Sarıyerliler SKEP Çalıştayında Buluştu”. Sarıyer Posta. (February 13, 2024)
8. Yılmaz, Gözde. 2016. “ Europeanisation or De-Europeanisation? Media Freedom in Turkey (1999-2015).” South European Society and Politics 21 (1): 147-161.
