Balancing effectiveness and legitimacy: resettlement of property owners in flooded areas

After a major flood event in Türkiye, the government implemented forced resettlement as an adaptation measure, affecting the ownership rights in 546 properties through expropriation. While aimed at rapid recovery, this intervention had severe consequences for vulnerable groups. Property owners from these groups were particularly affected, as their ownership ties made them less mobile and more susceptible to such interventions compared to tenants. This research discusses a government-led resettlement process following a disaster, using legitimacy as a conceptual lens to better understand the balance between urgency and fairness. It examines the impacts of rapid recovery on property owners by analyzing state authorities’ justifications for their recovery policies and affected property owners’ perceptions of these policies’ outcomes. A qualitative case study in the Bozkurt district of Türkiye includes eleven semi-structured interviews with state authorities and 40 narrative interviews with property owners. The findings show that the top-down recovery approach created a mismatch between intended goals and actual outcomes, particularly for economically and socially disadvantaged property owners. Many resettled property owners face financial uncertainty, lacking clear information about the cost of their new homes. Inadequate and delayed compensation, inflation-related losses, the lack of differentiation for varying levels of property damage, hastily chosen resettlement sites, poor quality of new housing, and unfulfilled promises, such as maintaining neighborhood ties or respecting building floor preferences, have deepened feelings of injustice. These issues show how vulnerable property owners—those with low income, those who are elderly, and those with lower education levels—are disproportionately affected by such rapid resettlement policies, leaving them less resilient and with diminished ownership rights until their debts are repaid. The case study shows how land policy instruments and interventions during recovery can unintentionally exacerbate inequality when implemented without sufficient deliberation. Although the intervention aimed to provide new housing, it resulted in significant social, economic, and legal challenges—revealing the real cost of prioritizing speed over thoughtful, inclusive recovery. This research concludes that while rapid responses are important after disasters, a more transparent, equitable, and deliberative approach is needed for the long-term well-being of affected communities.