Mayor Böcek announces 132 projects in Antalya: 'It's time for restoration, not recreation...'

Journalist Yusuf Yavuz reported that Antalya Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Muhittin Böcek, who met with members of the press, has 132 projects for the new term. 

In his article, where he stated, "It was noteworthy that between the lines of Muhittin Böcek's speech, he also touched upon the second stage of the Boğaçayı project, which was brought to the agenda during the term of AKP's Menderes Türel and whose first stage was implemented," Yavuz reported the following:

THE BOĞAÇAYI PROJECT DID NOT PASS

Böcek said, “My project on Boğaçayı did not pass the council. I had a recreation project where children could fish and adults could spend time. An embankment project was to be carried out along the coast. My project was not crazy, it did not pass the council. I also have a recreation project for the Düden Stream for the 15-kilometer area up to where it flows into the sea,” he said.

The proposal regarding the project prepared for the second stage of the Boğaçayı project was on the agenda of the Metropolitan Municipal Council on November 13, 2023. We had published an article bringing the issue to the agenda before the Metropolitan Council meeting where the Boğaçayı project proposal would also be discussed. 

"IT WAS STATED THAT THE SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE GAVE FULL MARKS"

The Boğaçayı project was left to the continuation meeting of the Council. However, just before the November continuation council, Mayoral advisors Cem Oğuz, Lokman Atasoy, and Alper Gökçay provided information to representatives of some professional chambers about the project, which was announced under the full name “Boğaçayı 2nd Stage Stream Improvement and Recreation Arrangement”. In the bulletin served to the local press after the tour of the project area, it was stated that “the scientific committee gave full marks to the project”.

THE PROJECT WAS SENT TO THE COMMISSION

This hastily held meeting and statement before the November continuation council showed that it was considered certain that the project would pass the council. The statements of Mayoral Advisor Cem Oğuz were also in this direction. However, in the voting held at the continuation council on November 22, Article 27, which includes the Boğaçayı Project, was unanimously sent back to the commission for re-evaluation. 

THE PROJECT WAS WITHDRAWN BY MAYOR BÖCEK’S OWN PARTY

The second stage of the Boğaçayı project, which Muhittin Böcek underlined by saying “my project did not pass the council”, was actually withdrawn upon the proposal of his own party.  Upon the verbal request of Council Member Deniz Filiz, who took the floor on behalf of the CHP Group, to withdraw the regulation regarding Boğaçayı in Article 27 from the Council agenda, Mayor Böcek put this request to a vote. In the voting, the request was accepted and the second stage of the controversial Boğaçayı project was unanimously sent back to the relevant commission.

The statements containing grievances expressed by Mayor Böcek in his meeting with members of the press do not reflect the truth and also contain agitation aimed at misleading the public.

"MUNICIPALITIES CONTROL MORE BUDGET THAN MINISTRIES"

As in the whole country, parties are preparing for local elections in Antalya with great ambition. This is because the massive budgets of metropolitan municipalities and the rent created for the financing of central politics are appetizing. The figures show that metropolitan budgets compete with many investment ministries. The 2024 budget of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, together with its subsidiaries, was announced as 516 billion TL. Considering that the 2024 budget of the Ministry of National Defense was presented as 440 billion, the Ministry of Interior as 76 billion, and the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure as 369 billion, the "emotional" reasons for the race to capture seats in metropolitan municipalities are better understood.

ANTALYA METROPOLITAN MUNICIPALITY WILL CONTROL 54 BILLION IN 2024

The 2024 budget of the Antalya Metropolitan Municipality was announced as 16 billion TL. Together with the district municipalities, the total budget for 2024 is 41.8 billion. When the 12.8 billion budget of ASAT, which is affiliated with the municipality, is added, this figure reaches approximately 54 billion TL.

If we consider the additional budgets requested in the last quarter of the year, the amount of public resources that the Antalya Metropolitan Municipality can rule and dispose of within a year will reach 60 billion TL.

MINISTRY OF CULTURE'S BUDGET IS 38, COAST GUARD'S IS 11.5 BILLION!

When it is considered that the Ministry of Culture and Tourism has a budget of 38.9 billion, the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources 48 billion, the Ministry of Trade 38 billion, the MIT 11 billion, and the Coast Guard Command 11.5 billion TL, the scale of the amount controlled by only the Antalya Metropolitan Municipality in one year is better understood.

ELECTION BUDGET CRITICISM

For this reason, public resources can be used recklessly before the election, press conferences can be held in 5-star hotels, projects worth 66 million for the Hıdırlık Tower and 200 million for the Konyaaltı beach can be tendered even when there is no need, nostalgic tram line and pavement arrangement tenders are made, and public resources can be easily spent for the election budget.

SOME OF THE ANNOUNCED PROJECTS WERE IMPLEMENTED YEARS AGO

Among the new term projects that Muhittin Böcek announced to the city public, there are many topics that are either mandatory tasks undertaken by the institution or projects that were planned before but not done, and some that were left idle. For example, the “Bicycle Friendly City Project” promised by Mayor Böcek was a project started during the Mustafa Akaydın era. In the 2010s, bicycle users in Antalya held an important place in the social fabric of the city and Antalya was known as a bicycle city. Within the scope of this project, some bicycle paths and bicycle rental points were built. However, in the time that has passed, since interest and project follow-up could not be carried out in a healthy way, the bicycle rental points remained neglected.

THE COURT OF ACCOUNTS RECORDED SMART PROJECTS AS PUBLIC LOSS

Similarly, the Smart City Management Center was implemented with a focus on the Santral Neighborhood, and smart lighting systems were put into operation in parks and other areas in the city, but these projects also became idle due to neglect and lack of interest. In the 2022 audits of the Court of Accounts, it was explained item by item how smart lighting and irrigation projects were left idle and caused public loss.

CONCRETE WAS POURED FOR SHOW IN BALBEY

The Balbey Urban Renewal Project was also a delayed project that should have been done in previous periods. Although it was served as "the first concrete was poured" by pouring concrete into one or two foundations in the Balbey Neighborhood days before the elections, this practice was no different from the government's showy groundbreaking projects.

SANTRAL NEIGHBORHOOD PROJECTS ARE SUR YAPI'S MANDATORY TASKS

The Santral Neighborhood Education Complex, social facilities, and mosque projects, which Mayor Böcek announced as a "new project", are actually among the necessary items to be built, which were previously tendered in the Türel era and included in the urban transformation project given to Sur Yapı. When the project was given to Sur Yapı, the applications of the MAtchUp Project, an EU project with a budget of 2.8 million Euros that should have spread to the whole city, were largely incorporated into Sur Yapı's project, and the project, which should have benefited the entire city, was turned into an advertising and marketing tool for the pro-government contractor company. While Altan Elmas, the owner of Sur Yapı, who guaranteed the tenders he would receive from the government with the mosque he built in Taksim, was victimizing many rights holders in the Santral Neighborhood, he was benefiting from the blessings of rent-based transformation by selling the residences he built to Arabs, Iranians, and Russians as "smart" thanks to the EU-granted applications dressed in the project by the municipality. 

THE GLITTERING DEATH OF THE DÜDEN STREAM, WHICH WAS MADE A PROJECT ADDICT

The "15-kilometer" Düden Stream Environmental Arrangement project announced by Mayor Böcek is also one of the items in need of explanation in a similar way. While the heavy pollution in the Düden Stream, which resulted in fish deaths, also caused the sea to be polluted, the pollution could not be prevented despite the reports prepared by both the Muratpaşa and Metropolitan municipalities. The showy administrative fines imposed and the statements made to save the day cannot stop the Düden from dying in plain sight. While the heavy sewage smell spreading from the upper Düden in recent days poses a great threat to the health of both visitors and natural life, the metropolitan administration did not refrain from making statements boasting about the environmental awards it received. This is the flashy, award-winning, and glittering death of the environment!

YÖRÜKS, FOR WHOM MILLIONS ARE SPENT ON THE VIRTUAL WHILE THE REAL DISAPPEARS

The Living Yörük-Turkmen Village project actually means contributing to the death of a culture that lives without knowing exactly what it serves, and driving a nail into its coffin. In recent years, many arrangements opened under the name of "Yörük Museum" have generalized a display method that has nothing to do with museology or Yörük culture. Municipalities are leading the way in this business. Just like in Africa, similar "touristic" simulation villages reflecting the lives of the natives have begun to be established in Turkey, even at the level of plastic tents. This cacophony, which reduces Yörük life to gözleme-ayran and people playing and dancing incessantly, running aimlessly from there to here, has surrounded the whole country. However, while the last Yörüks of Anatolia, who truly maintain the nomadic production style, are struggling to exist, they are gradually being erased from history by breaking away from production. Such practices of municipalities bring with them a cultural degeneration that spends millions on reviving the real while it is being destroyed.

CAN YOU BE ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY BY INCREASING CARBON PRODUCTION?

The 'Environmentally Friendly Vehicles Project' announced by Böcek is also one of the contradictions of the institution. This contradiction is better understood when it is considered that approximately one-third of the total expenditure amount in the tenders made by the Metropolitan Municipality since 2019 has been transferred to fuel and automotive companies. In other words, while the Metropolitan administration uses public resources in great luxury with hundreds of vehicles rented from its advisor to its bureaucrat, from its department head to its branch manager, it also creates the source of pollution, which has a significant share in carbon production in the city. While the city people suffer from transportation in the heat of summer and the rain of winter, from municipal officials who use public vehicles as their private vehicles to advisors who do not refrain from posing inside luxury vehicles and sharing on social media with the words "we did not choose this glittering life", they have occupied the collective memory of Antalya.

WHY COULDN'T A SOLUTION BE PRODUCED FOR EXPO FOR 5 YEARS?

After Hakan Tütüncü, the candidate of the AKP and the People's Alliance, Mayor Böcek's statements regarding the EXPO area also contain content that will be written to the minus account of both mayors. During the 5 years they were in office, no significant step was taken regarding what both mayors could do about the EXPO area. The EXPO area, which was established on agricultural lands and riverbeds by spending a large public resource, has been used as a wedding hall or a film set since 2016. However, it could have been functionalized for many issues that the city needs, but this was not done. That is why the statements made before the election do not seem very sincere.

IT'S TIME FOR RESTORATION, NOT RECREATION

To summarize, the minds of mayoral candidates who aspire to manage a city like Antalya, which has a unique nature and historical accumulation, are still working unaware of the crises we are living in and are coming. While the United Nations has declared 2021-2030 as the "Decade of Restoration" all over the world, while we have entered a fragile period where cities need protection more than promotion, and while emphasis should be placed on restoration rather than recreation, the fact that the projects of 1990s municipalism are still being scattered around is worrying for the future of cities and society.