Evolution of the cadastre renewal understanding in Türkiye: A fit-for-purpose renewal model proposal

Abstract

Keeping the cadastre up to date is as important as establishing it for securely conducting people-to-land relations. As a concept, cadastral renewal refers to digitising the cadastral plan and correcting errors because of cadastre in the legal land registry information, updating them in a format and structure to create infrastructure for spatial information systems, making them available for use. Before 1987, cadastral work was conducted following various production methods and laws of the period. As a result of rapid urbanisation, the transformation of rural areas into urban areas, and the increase in the value of parcels, the delay in land-related investment projects because cadastral data and technical documents do not meet the expectations of accuracy and completeness, has been discussed for a long time in the country. Cadastral renewal projects carried out in places of urgent need because of technical and legal problems have become state policies with the Land Registry and Cadastre Modernization Project (TKMP), initiated in 2007 using the resources provided by the World Bank. In this project, it was determined that 22.3 million of the existing 58.3 million cadastral parcels in Türkiye should be renewed. As of 2021, approximately 14 million parcels have been renewed by the participation of the private sector while the renewal of the rest has been ongoing. This study examined the adequacy of the existing land registry and cadastre data within the scope of rural cadastral renewal. In this framework, the cadastral technical file, land book, and land registry information in the Land Registry and Cadastre Information System (TAKBIS) were compared within the classification framework, and their differences were determined. In addition, the parcel areas calculated by initial cadastral surveys years ago to establish the cadastre were compared with the legal areas and new areas of the parcels calculated after the renewal. It was found that 90.37% of the parcel areas calculated based on the initial surveys were consistent with those calculated after the renewal, whereas 67.47% were consistent with the legal areas within the tolerance values. According to these results, supported by other findings, cost-effective and rapid cadastre renewal has been proposed.