Villages of Izmir will be developed while preserving their heritage

The Rural Services Directorate General, established for the preservation and development of rural areas in Izmir, has started to work in the field with local stakeholders. The teams will create action plans for the preservation and development of villages in a way that is suitable for their own structure, solve priority issues during field tours, and ensure measures are taken against threats such as construction pressure and speculation.
Izmir Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Dr. Cemil Tugay, immediately after taking office, established the Rural Services Directorate General for the comprehensive development and preservation of rural areas, which has begun fieldwork after the planning process. The Rural Services Directorate, which initiated work in 19 districts outside the city center, continues its detection studies by visiting villages one by one in coordination with district municipalities and local stakeholders. During fieldwork, the teams visiting Kaleköy, Karaburç, Çayağzı, and İğdeli in Kiraz identified the problems, needs, natural and cultural structure of the villages on-site.
What kind of work will be carried out? The Rural Services Directorate General will approach each rural area as a whole with its cultural, economic, architectural, and geographical dynamics, unlike agricultural services. It will first work to preserve villages in a way that is suitable for their structures. In order to implement correct development initiatives, villages will be classified according to criteria such as geographical structure, livelihood sources, historical accumulations, agricultural products. Planning will be done for development investments based on the data obtained.
At the same time, through fieldwork, pending issues of villages will be communicated to relevant units for rapid solutions. Various topics such as selecting renewable energy sources, preventing non-purposeful use of efficient agricultural lands, combating climate change, and preventing pressure on rural areas by the city will be on the agenda.
“We were established for the planning of rural areas and solving problems” Rural Services Directorate General President Nehir Yüksel, who works in the field with district municipality officials, village headmen, and unit officers, stated that Izmir leads with the establishment of this unit. Yüksel said: “Generally, Rural Services throughout Turkey mainly continue their work in agriculture and other infrastructure services. Izmir Metropolitan Municipality already has a Directorate General of Agricultural Services. The Rural Services Directorate General was established for planning rural areas and solving the problems they face. One aspect of this is to identify the needs for spatial arrangements in rural areas, to produce strategies and policies for the protection of the local architecture, texture, natural areas, and sensitive areas in terms of ecosystem. Partly, it will work on coordinating the preparation of strategies and action plans for rural development, producing information and documents related to strengthening rural economy.”
“Each region experiences different problems” Nehir Yüksel, who stated that they have started work in 19 districts outside the central districts of Izmir, said: “We continue our work on exchanging information with our municipalities and collecting data. Our primary goal is to evaluate the problems, approaches, and threats in 19 districts as a whole. Then, we aim to categorize them individually and determine specific strategies for each.”
“We cannot conduct this process without local collaboration” Providing information about the process, Nehir Yüksel said: “In the initial stage, we get in touch with district municipalities. Then, we visit all our districts one by one. We go to rural neighborhoods and villages with district municipalities, identify problems, and conduct inventory studies. We aim to carry out every stage of the process with village headmen, cooperatives, and contributions from district municipalities.”
“Each village, each district has a different story” Yüksel, who said that each village and each district has a different story, continued: “While we see different construction pressures in Urla, we see that the rural area is preserved and there is no migration in Kiraz. For example, Kiraz has a population of 44,000. Since it has not exceeded 50,000, its share from the Municipal Finance Bank does not increase. Each village has different needs, a different texture. That’s why we aim to create design guides specific to each settlement. But we want to approach these settlements with a holistic approach in the short term. Our most important issue is to create a comprehensive strategy and action plan where all the unique problems of the rural area are identified. In the short term, we aim to create a guide in the hands of both the Metropolitan Municipality and district municipalities.”
“We will create a reference data” Nehir Yüksel continued his speech with some examples: “The texture of Barbaros Village in Urla is rubble stone structure. However, when we go and see, we see completely different facades and materials that are contrary to the original texture. Our goal is to determine the criteria that the local people can quickly reach. Such as the size of the window. Such as the openness, hollowness, fullness ratio, and material of the facade. We will create a reference data and pass on this information to future generations.”
Nehir Yüksel stated that the ultimate goal of all the work is to preserve and develop Izmir’s rural areas as a whole, but also emphasized the need to combat the issue of construction and speculation in rural areas. Yüksel said, “Especially during the pandemic and afterwards, we see a significant increase in construction tendencies in rural areas. This leads to fragmentation on agricultural land. This is the case in villages in Izmir, especially those with coastal tourism. There is now an uncontrollable level of construction pressure. This needs to be brought to a manageable level.”
Full support from district municipalities Taskın Güren, working at the Kiraz Municipality Planning Directorate, who accompanied the studies, said, “There is a study for the development of our villages. I am sure it will make a great contribution, and the service will further increase. As Kiraz Municipality, we support the teams coming from Izmir Metropolitan Municipality. We take them around our villages and explain their problems.”
“It is great that they are coming here” Kiraz Kaleköy Neighborhood Headman Murat Seçkin said, “We are satisfied with Izmir Metropolitan Municipality’s agricultural practices, but we had problems waiting to be solved. We had problems such as conservation area, drinking water. It is very nice that Izmir Metropolitan Municipality made such a move. It is important that they come here, talk to us directly, listen to us. There is a difference between making a request and having a conversation. It is important that they see the problems here live.”