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TRANSFORMING OF HISTORICAL REAL ESTATE ENTITIES’S PROPERTY 
TO PUBLIC PROPERTY 
R. Nisanci a *, B. Uzun a , M. Cete a , 
a KTU, Geodesy and Photogrammetry Engineering Department, 61080 Trabzon, Turkey 
(rnisanci, buzun, mcete)@ktu.edu.tr 
Commission VI, WG VI/4 
KEY WORDS: GIS, Cultural Heritage, Urban Land Use 
ABSTRACT: 
Being international public assets, historical and cultural entities are heritages left to today’s human being by past communities. 
Protecting and transferring to the next generation of these entities are one of the main mission of individuals and administrators. 
Today, unearned income of lands has a great importance, so, cultural entities’s protection in urban areas is very difficult. The cause 
of this effects real estate’s location which is in restricted areas is limited in terms of acquired development rights (in result of 
transformation to public property). Thus, in result of the losing development rights which is one of the factors effecting land value, 
economical value of land property diminishes. Transferring to public property of cultural real estate entities, whose property is in 
private property is important in protecting these entities. Legal legislation can not allow to any solution except for land 
condemnation and urban land readjustment in realizing of this purpose in Turkey. On the other hand, some developed countries have 
different approaches for gaining property of historical, agricultural or other areas requiring protection. In this study, firstly existing 
legislation has been examined, then solution proposals have been investigated for gaining of cultural property entities to public 
property by providing an approach to property problems via transferring land development rights to other areas have been examined. 
For this purpose, an application area has been selected in Ortahisar surroundings of Trabzon Cattle one of the most important assets 
of Rome and Byzantium era. In this specified area, Geographical Information System (GIS) has been used for relating, analysing 
and querying of non-graphical data. In addition, property transfer between old and new housing areas via assistance of GIS 
techniques has been realized. 
1. INTRODUCTION 
Nowadays, cultural and natural entities are threaten by different 
factors. The biggest and the most common threat is arisen by 
modern life wishes (Kalabalik, 2002). Because, generally the 
real estate cultural entities are in urban rent (unearned income) 
areas, these areas are becoming more attractive economically, 
so, real estate owners have economic loss and they want to 
compensate their loss. As a result of this situation, unsuitable 
constructions and demolished or burned buildings have been 
arisen in protection areas and then historical assets remain in 
unsuitable constructions. 
As a result of rapid urbanization, historical assets are destroyed 
especially in big cities of Turkey. So, the question of‘how can 
these important heritages be protected from destroying’ is 
becoming most important and current matter of Turkey 
(Sokman, 1987). 
Producing solutions for such problems is a main duty of 
planning and property related disciplines. On the other hand, at 
the end of the rapid changing and development, globalization, 
localization and restructuring process, classical planning and 
restructuring of property design approaches have become 
inadequate to solve these problems. Failed in application stage, 
this approach should be changed with a contemporary, allowing 
to produce solutions for the problems in short and long period 
of time, flexible and optional planning approach (Tuncer, 
1998). 
Planning decisions and property design are directly related with 
applicability of plans. Gaining to public property of these 
historical assets’s property being national and also international 
property is the most important stage in protection of historical 
assets. Except expropriation and land readjustment, there is no 
other ex-officio way to gain private property to public property. 
Whereas, developed countries have developed different 
methods to realize this purpose. Transferring of development 
rights, which is one of the this study’s concerns, is one of the 
these methods. 
Transfer of development rights (TDRs) means shifting the 
future development potential from one piece of property to 
another piece of property (Bredin, 2000). TDR is premised on 
the idea that ownership of land entails ownership of a bundle of 
rights, including rights to access (easements), minerals (mineral 
rights), and undeveloped spaces above the parcel (air rights) 
(Woodbury, 1975). A development rights is defined as the 
difference between the existing use of the parcel and its 
potential use as permitted by existing law. In other words, a 
development right is equal to the unused development potential 
of a parcel of land (Pizor, 1986). Sales of rights can compensate 
landowners for the costs of restrictions on development of their 
land. Rights (measured in various units of development density) 
are purchased in open-market transactions by those who want to 
build to bonus densities on other parcels. The buyer gains 
density; the seller reaps profit from the sale; the community 
benefits from whatever is preserved by the development 
restriction-open space, farmland, historical sites, or 
environmentally sensitive lands. 
In this study, an example application has been realized to gain 
property of the area named as interior castle in the historical 
Trabzon castle in the Ortahisar district where is one of the 
historical settlement areas to public property.