The Belediye Board held their monthly meeting on Tuesday 6th October.

Once again the meeting room was full of local people, for what was quite a lively session.

Kalkan Turkish Local News was there on your behalf.  Here are the key points we noted.

Limited company
The Belediye Board agreed that they should form a limited company to make the administrative work of the Belediye easier.  This is something that other Belediye offices have done, with some success, to minimise the impact of bureaucracy.

Town twinning
The Mayor was recently approached by a retired Italian ambassador, who proposed that Kalkan should be twinned with the Italian town of Cupramontana.  This municipality, with a population of around 5,000, lies in the province of Ancona, in the Marche region.

The local economy includes olive and grape production, and the manufacture of footwear.  It is also a tourism area.  You can see some photos of Cupramontana here. 

The Board discussed the benefits of such a twinning arrangement, and a vote was taken where they agreed to go ahead.  Potential benefits are in the areas of culture, education and the local economy.

There was some discussion as to how this would be perceived by the majority of visitors to Kalkan.  By twinning with Cupramontana, it does not rule out the possibility of twinning with other places.  The Belediye is interested to know whether there are potential towns in the UK that would like to consider twinning.

[KTLN comment: We will be following up suggestions received from KTLN members for potential UK twin towns.  As far as Cupramontana is concerned, we think anything that may encourage visitors from other countries (other than the UK) is a good thing for Kalkan.  In fact Italians were some of the first visitors to come to Kalkan, many years ago.  The local economies of both towns have certain similarities and they may be able to learn things from each other].

Establishment of a Belediye working group
The Belediye Board agreed to the establishment of an ongoing working group (Kent Konseyi) that will meet on an ad-hoc basis to discuss matters of importance to the Belediye.  The group will include 3 Kalkan Belediye Board members, and from time to time they will temporarily co-opt other people with relevant skills, knowledge or experience, as they see fit.  This group will support the work of the Belediye Board by undertaking research and working through options that can then be presented to the Board for consideration.

Five year plan
The Board agreed to prepare a detailed 5 year plan for Kalkan.  This will set out what the priorities are for the current administration, for their term in office.

[KTLN comment: We shall publish details of the plan when they are made public].

Kalkan plan/map
Kalkan Belediye is required to prepare a new local plan (map), taking in certain outlying areas, such as parts of Akbel and Ulugöl.  Plans already exist (which we think were produced by the Forestry Commission), at a scale of 1:100,000, however Kalkan Belediye must prepare more detailed plans at a scale of 1:25,000.

One of the reasons this must be done is to assist with the formalisation of the legal status of housing built in outlying areas, where tapus have not been issued in the past.  However, this should not be taken as a sign that tapus will be available for new houses built in these outlying areas.  This is more about regularising issues with existing dwellings.

Villa Mahal
The Board agreed to widen an existing road by 1.5 metres to provide easier access to Villa Mahal.

Planning - various matters
Various planning rules were discussed.  We won't go into all the details here.  However, there are a few things to mention.  

The subject of 'bodrum' was extensively discussed.  Not Bodrum on the Aegean coast, but a bodrum, as in a basement or depot, below ground.

The local building rules allow a building to be constructed to a level of two and a half floors - i.e. ground floor, first floor, and the 'half', typically built into the sloping roof.  In addition to this, it is permitted to build a level underground as a depot or storage area.  However, it has become common practice for these depots to be used as living areas (with kitchens, sitting areas etc).  

This 'flexible interpretation' of the rules is so widespread, it is hard to see what can practically be done, however, the Mayor is far from happy, and this practice is on his radar.  No specific decision was taken on this matter as far as we could tell, but perhaps it is a subject that will resurface for discussion in the future.

During the long discussion on planning rules, one plan that was presented to the Belediye came in for criticism.  It appears that plans put before the Belediye were not a true representation of the facts - i.e. boundaries were misrepresented.  The Belediye passed a vote that they would no longer accept applications with plans prepared by this particular local architect.

[KTLN comment:  We have taken advice and decided that as things currently stand, we will not publish the name of the architect].

Planning rules for hotels
The final subject to be discussed was on the subject of building regulations, in so far as they apply to hotels.  This subject attracted a lot of comments from the public, who were in attendance.

Again, we cannot go into low level details here, but here is our high level understanding of what was discussed.

On any plot of land, you are only allowed to build on a certain percentage of the overall area.  This percentage varies depending on where the land is located, but it can be 12.5%, 15%, 20%, 30% or even as high as 40%.

A letter was submitted to the Mayor, signed by a number of local architects, recommending that for plots of land more than 1,200 sq metres, where a hotel is permitted to be built, the percentage allowed for the building should be increased by 10%.  So for example, where currently 12.5% of the land may be built upon, this would increase to 22.5%.  This would also apply for existing hotels, where they may want to extend.

It was suggested that the Kalkan hotel industry has suffered over recent times, with more people choosing villa and apartment accommodation.  This change would make hotel construction more economically viable, and would encourage business people to develop hotels.  It was claimed that Kalkan needs more hotels (smaller boutique types), to cater for future tourist numbers.

The proposal was extensively discussed by the Board.  At one point a proposal to increase the percentage by 5% was discussed, however in the end the Board voted to allow the 10% increase.

There were a number of comments from the public.  One architect pointed out that the letter was not from all architects in Kalkan, implying that there is not 100% support.  Other members of the public felt that Kalkan did not need larger hotels and that the 10% increase was a bad idea.

Following these comments from the public, even though the vote for a 10% increase had been passed, the Board agreed that they would look again at this proposal and reconsider their decision.