**4. Recommendations for Turkey**

In Turkey, brownfield redevelopment issue needs to be handled in a comprehensive manner beginning from policy formulation to determining design criteria. Cities in Turkey must struggle with many economic, social, environmental, and politic problems. At this point, brownfields represent opportunities in order to obtain sustainability and increase the living standards especially in urban areas.

One study of several EPA Brownfield Pilot projects found that for the sustainable brownfield redevelopment, the most common scenario involves a local government entity taking owner‐ ship of the site, characterizing environmental contamination, and then marketing the property to private sector [44]. This strategy is also can be very useful for Turkey. The Pittsburgh, USA experiences represent good practices to the essential roles of local authorities in brownfield redevelopments. In Pittsburgh case, URA did not only take place as a developer but also as facilitator that eliminate financial, social, and environmental obstacles [45]. The local govern‐ ments can undertake the URA's role in small and medium sized cities in Turkey. On the other hand, a new body as a coordinator and technical assistant can be established in metropolitan cities in order to prevent speculative property transformations and to provide collaboration between central and local entities in financial and legal issues. Such an institution can also stimulate the public participation by organizing training programs. The structure of the institution should be generated with the interdisciplinary approach in a way to include environmental experts, urban planners, urban designers, economists, sociologists, architects, and lawyers.

The SWOT analysis in **Table 1** summarizes the positive and negative aspects of sustainable

‐Increasing public awareness in environmental related issues all around the world ‐Existence inside the city centres

‐High market demand ‐High land prices ‐Urban sprawl ‐Greenfields ‐Lack of a definite environmental policy ‐Privatization policies ‐Lack of specific legal arrangements related with

brownfields

investments

participation ‐Public resistance ‐Lack of collaboration between the stakeholders

‐Speculative implementations ‐Lack of administrative

‐Lack/insufficiency of public

**Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities Threats**

brownfield redevelopment issue in Turkey with a strategic point of view.

‐Lack of public awareness ‐Lack of legal arrangements related with environmental

‐Lack of standards about remediation issues ‐Uncertainty in responsibilities

contamination

‐Handicaps in the transformation of state‐ owned properties into private properties ‐Financial risks due to contamination

historical heritage preservation

**Table 1.** SWOT analysis for sustainable brownfield redevelopment in Turkey.

‐Weak environmental groups

In Turkey, brownfield redevelopment issue needs to be handled in a comprehensive manner beginning from policy formulation to determining design criteria. Cities in Turkey must struggle with many economic, social, environmental, and politic problems. At this point, brownfields represent opportunities in order to obtain sustainability and increase the living

One study of several EPA Brownfield Pilot projects found that for the sustainable brownfield redevelopment, the most common scenario involves a local government entity taking owner‐ ship of the site, characterizing environmental contamination, and then marketing the property to private sector [44]. This strategy is also can be very useful for Turkey. The Pittsburgh, USA experiences represent good practices to the essential roles of local authorities in brownfield redevelopments. In Pittsburgh case, URA did not only take place as a developer but also as facilitator that eliminate financial, social, and environmental obstacles [45]. The local govern‐ ments can undertake the URA's role in small and medium sized cities in Turkey. On the other hand, a new body as a coordinator and technical assistant can be established in metropolitan cities in order to prevent speculative property transformations and to provide collaboration between central and local entities in financial and legal issues. Such an institution can also

**Environmental/ physical**

146 Sustainable Urbanization

**Economic** ‐Valuable

‐Existence of infrastructure ‐Accessibility ‐Historical heritage

properties in the inner cities

**4. Recommendations for Turkey**

standards especially in urban areas.

**Social** ‐Insufficient awareness in

In Turkey, the responsibilities for the waste managements are distributed between several institutions and organizations. The new authority can also coordinate and undertake some of their responsibilities in technical, financial, and monitoring issues.

As mentioned above, lack of transparency has been one of the major barriers in the redevel‐ opment of brownfields. In Turkey, corruption in municipalities especially in urban develop‐ ment‐related issues has been on the public agenda for decades [46]. Plan modifications and implementations generally have been subject to court cases. The transformations in state‐ owned lands, therefore, must be realized in transparency with public participation in order to eliminate speculations.

A big amount of brownfields in Turkey are originated from formerly state‐owned firms. In order to turn those properties into marketable products, some essential changes should be done in the scope of urban development policies. At the same time, local and central authorities could prepare concrete measures to benefit brownfield redevelopment such as tax reduction and promotion of brownfields as equally interesting entities as greenfields.

Environmental taxes are widely used policy tool in many industrialized nations. Turkey also employs tax policy for environmental protection purposes. However, environment‐specific taxes have been introduced primarily for revenue raising purposes. Since additional revenues collected through environmental taxes have not been allocated for environmentally friendly investments or services, their impact on the environment remains limited to gains from reduced consumption [37]. The legal arrangements should be done to provide the use of environmental taxes for environmental issues.

As brownfields are seen in the context of privatization, the legal and institutional framework should also be rearranged towards dealing with the remaining state property and enterprises in which the government still has responsibility. The remaining state‐owned lands in metro‐ politan areas and small sized cities must be seen as opportunities for eliminating the environ‐ mental, economic, and social problems with a sustainable approach.

Another essential issue in Turkish case is the necessity of available data for the potential brownfields at national and local level. The absence of such inventories makes it impossible to estimate the dimension of brownfield problems and their possible socioeconomic costs. In United States and many of the Western countries governors try to determine the amount of brownfields. The data provide the vital knowledge for federal government in distribution of the public funds between the local authorities. As a country which struggle with unemploy‐ ment and lack of financial sources, it is necessary to take the advantages of international funds for the projects where market‐demand is low. Especially, the brownfields in the small and medium sized cities EU funds address opportunities for obtaining sustainable urban devel‐ opment and creating jobs on the brownfield areas. EU generally supports the well‐defined and well‐organized projects which aims environmental protection and eliminated air, soil, and water pollutions [47].

Among all, ensuring the community involvement is one of the cornerstones of brownfield redevelopments [48–51]. The impacts of brownfields can extend beyond the boundaries of the property to affect the neighborhoods and environment. Safety problems, environmental, and public health threats are some of their negative impacts on the surrounding communities. On the other side, their redevelopment can provide some economic and spatial opportunities. The increased efficiency of community‐based organizations and community development corpo‐ rations has triggered the governments to search for the ways to stimulate their participation [52]. Most of the governments recognized the fact that without their participation, it is nearly impossible to achieve a successful project in a reasonable time. However, in Turkey, most of the urban regeneration projects were realized without community participation. Therefore, there are still some challenges in the society against the regeneration projects.

All in all, the required attempts in order to achieve sustainable regeneration/redevelopment of brownfields at the national and local level in Turkey can be summarized as in the **Table 2**.


**Table 2.** Required attempts for sustainable brownfield redevelopment in Turkey.
