IV. Local Governments
Turkey is going through a period of rapid urbanization. The ratio of the urban population to total population, which stood at 23% in 1935, is today 61%. It is estimated that this ratio will reach 85% in the next 20 years meaning a total urban population of 72 million.
Given this fundamental reality, the Liberal Democrat Party pays particular attention to the issue of local governments and treats it under a separate heading in its Program.
IV.l. Liberalism in Local Governments
IV.l.l. Liberal philosophy dictates individual’s basic rights to live and work in healthy, safe and modern conditions. ; Thus, we believe that the living environment and living conditions of the individual is of utmost importance as regards to his/her well being, happiness and productivity and intend · into take all measures to serve this end as regards to legal and administrative arrangements.
IV.l.2. We reject the view that financial needs of local governments be met by the central government that is, the State. The State should assume a minimum role in this area as well and carry out the duties which individual enterprises would not due to profitability reasons. The essence of liberal thinking in this area is the direct utilization in local government of the individuals’ and individual enterprises’ creativity, skill, rationalism and economy.
IV.l.3. The individual’s participation in local governments is of great importance in a liberal democracy. In other words, the individual has a greater responsibility in electing local government bodies than in electing deputies of the Parliament because, local governmental bodies have a direct impact on the quality of life of the individuals.
IV.l.4. With this belief, the Liberal Party attaches utmost importance to the development of local mass communication means as they will have a vital part to play in the establishment of healthy interaction between the individual and the local government (ref.I.1.6., II.2.7.).
IV.l.5. In electing local government bodies, which are regarded as local parliaments, what gives the people information about the candidates up for the post of Mayor is, naturally, the political parties to which the candidates belong. The main criterion that these political parties should use in determining their candidates should be his/her experience in having successfully managed a large organization.
IV.l.6. Candidates up for the post of Mayor can not be divested of their political identity. If they were, then the competitive environment, which is a prerequisite of liberal democracy, would cease to exist. However, it is proven by experience that this situation has the risk of being used as an instrument of political populism. At this point, a great democratic responsibility again falls on the individual and, before casting his/her vote, he/she comes to be responsible of thoroughly examining the local government philosophy of the candidates and the political parties they belong to.
IV.l.7. The Liberal Democrat Party believes that local governing is, above all, a matter of philosophy. In other words, correct answers in a consistent framework need to be given to the questions of i.e. what a city is, what it should be, why it should be, etc.
IV.2. Urbanization and the Cities
IV.2.l. A city is a settlement where large numbers of people live. The primary reason people live in cities is expectation of economic advantage.
IV.2.2. People live, prosper and develop as individuals where they earn money. This fact results in the emergence of another aspect of the city: A city should also be the place where people find the answers to their social and cultural needs.
IV.2.3. We believe that the urban administration philosophy should be based primarily on the economic reality of the city.
IV.3. The Mayor
IV.3.l. A Mayor’s duty is to make the city a place to live in, in every sense of the word and, in doing that, to take the original character of the city into account. Every city has a character, a nature and therefore, a value.
IV.3.2. The administrators of the city should not take the approach of making the city, i.e. cheap to live in because; this is not possible and is against urban reality and modern urbanism. Every city has a price; i.e. living in Istanbul has a big price just as owning a luxury car does.
IV.4. Investments
IV.4.l. We believe that services provided in cities should be of highest quality and thus the investments undertaken, big scale because, maximum numbers of people will be using them and they will pay themselves back fast. Making cheap, low quality and short-term investments in cities is a great waste.
IV.5. Resources
IV.5.l. We believe that the financial resources of investments to be undertaken by local governments in cities should come almost entirely from property taxes. Another source would be consumption taxes specific to the cities. In other words, all the costs of investments carried out for a city shall be collected from property owners in that city and from users of consumption goods and/or services offered by the city.
IV.5.2. In the same context, what determines the value of property is the city in which it is located, i.e. if the price of a certain size lot is 10 in Istanbul and 4 in Konya, the difference in value is due to the difference in the value of the two cities. In other words, it is the city that adds value to property. Thus, local governments should tax the properties located in their cities realistically as this should be the main resource to be utilized in providing for modern municipal services.
IV.5.3. Higher property taxes initially might and will be considered as unfair by property owners in the cities. However, their interests will certainly be higher in the mid and long term since revenues raised will in turn be spent for the city in which they own the very property, yet increasing the value of both the city and the property. It is also a fact that property is an asset that is taxed easily, it is a “sitting duck”. Inspire of this fact, tax evasion in this area is surprisingly the most common in Turkey. We believe that this situation should be corrected.
IV.5.4. We believe that, taxes imposed on urban property will distribute equitably. For example, a property owner who pays higher tax on his/her property will in turn demand higher rent or sell the services/goods he supplies at this property at a higher price. This means that the city will become more expensive to live in or, from the viewpoint of liberal economy, fetching its true value.
IV.5.5. No service supplied in a city can be cheap let alone, free. Therefore, i.e. distribution of free bread, free milk etc. by the social democrat municipalities in Istanbul is a mockery of modern urbanism. It is nothing but, political populism. It should be remembered that, price is formed according to supply and demand. It has no relation to cost. This basic fact applies to modern urban management as well.
IV.6. Land
IV.6.l. We believe that all urban land over which there are cadastral problems should be transferred to the local government because, it is unfair that an individual owning such a land construct 20, 30 stages high buildings on it and acquire all the ground rent actually due to the entire city. As stated above, what makes a piece of land produce ground rent is not the individual who happens to own it but the whole city.
IV.6.2. Newly constructed immovable should also be realistically taxed or expropriated to a major extent. For example, a property owner who wants to have an office block built in an expensive part of Istanbul should either have to pay half of its true value to the municipality or to agree to half its value being expropriated by the municipality while obtaining a development permit. This is just like a landowner entering into a contract with a building contractor in return for the ownership of a number flats in the building.
IV.7. Private Ownership in the City
IV.7.l. Private persons must gradually abolish private ownership of urban land because the continuation of the present situation means the appropriation of urban rent. In order not to permit private ownership to develop even further, areas adjacent to municipal boundaries should be expropriated before they are developed.
IV.7.2. As for the land that is already under private ownership, it should be turned into leaseholds or taxed heavily, as stated above. The basic objective here is to ensure that urban land is channeled to local government in order to improve the cities. The Liberal Party considers it unfair that the benefits of urban service should go to property owners whereas their cost is borne by the local government. We believe that this situation does not conform to the concept of modern urbanism.
IV.8. Shanty Houses
IV.8.l. We believe that the title deeds (including the already issued official ones) of all shanty houses in the cities should be cancelled. To issue a title deed to a man who builds on land he does not own is equivalent to issuing a bank account book to a man that robs the bank. In a democratic, law based state; an individual who usurps public property is punished, not rewarded. Such an act can not be legitimized with any social and/or economic reason.
IV.8.2. However, in all our big cities today, tolerance is shown to all usurpers of public property, including street hawkers and shanty builders. Urban rent is allowed to, be appropriated by certain people for the sake of political popularity. It is unfortunate that the Motherland Party (ANAP) governments which will actually go down in history as the vanguard of most radical acts in local governments, should have led this political populism which had an enormously adverse impact on cities.
IV.8.3. The Liberal Democrat Party believes that this development should be stopped and reversed, inspire of all possible reactions. We believe that our people will not fail to understand that it is not fair for a man to become a billionaire by just building a shanty house in Istanbul, one of the world’s greatest cities and where land is very valuable. It is unfortunate that this is encouraged by the political power through local governments. In other words, the problem is basically the politician and political populism.
IV.8.4. Growth of shanty house districts suffocate our big ‘ cities and must be stopped. We suggest that people who live in these districts be relocated in mass housings to be constructed in smaller towns in order to compensate for the loss they would suffer.
IV.8.5.The Liberal Democrat Party is also against the construction of mass housing estates in big cities. In this context, we believe, for example, that the houses constructed by Emlakbank in İstanbul are totally against modern urbanism.
IV.9. Urban Service
IV.9.l. Another way of improving the efficiency of the local government is for municipalities not to engage in direct servicing. Just like the central government, local government should be in charge of administration and not execution.
IV.9.2. In this context, we believe that all urban services should be carried out by private organizations. This includes hospitals, schools, garbage collection, water supply and even supervision; supervision companies, operating just like the financial auditing firms should supervise i.e. construction projects.
IV.9.3. Privatization of urban services would also eliminate problems currently encountered between the metropolitan and district municipalities.
IV.10. Macro Concepts and Plans
IV.10.1. The duty of a mayor and his staff is to develop macro perspectives for the city and to establish a bridge between the people living in the city and the private organizations that serve these macro concepts. A mayor should have plenty of spare time, let alone working 18 hours a day and should but only coordinate.
IV.10.2. What we mean by macro concepts is, for example, in Istanbul the development of a concept that will serve the people living in the city to have better contact with the sea and thereof, introduce the measures to regulate land development.
IV.11. Arts and Culture
IV.11.1. The “Homo economicus” who satisfies his economic needs and enjoys modern living conditions in the city will immediately start demanding social and cultural variety. The city, to become a city, must thus simultaneously meet such needs of the individual.
IV.11.2. We believe that neither the central nor the local government should be involved in artistic or cultural activities. The regular remuneration of a man of arts and culture by central or local government is harmful to his identity and dignity as it destroys the independence, creativity and therefore, function of the artist.
IV.11.3. However, encouragement by local government of cultural and artistic activities in the city is one of the fundamental duties. Such encouragement should be in the form of keeping all cultural and artistic activities exempt from taxation (ref. II.2.7.). For example, property tax should not be collected from the owners of buildings such as theatres, exhibition halls, cinemas, concert halls, etc.
IV.l1.4. Another view we hold in this context is that property taxes should be lower in the case of spaces open to the public and that the taxes should vary according to the function of a particular property.
