Villagers won the legal battle in the Organized Industrial Zone, which is intended to be built in the pasture of Kavacık village in Edirne’s Uzunköprü district. The 6th Department of the Council of State canceled the Organized Industrial Zone (OSB) project, for which it had previously decided to stay the execution.
The villagers applied to the Council of State to cancel the changes made in the upper-scale plans for the establishment of the OIZ. The 6th Department of the Council of State decided that the OIZ project would cause public damages in terms of soil, forest, water assets, tumulus, cemeteries, villages and nature and canceled the project. The Council of State’s annulment decision is not the first legal gain of the villagers. Previously, the Council of State had decided to stay the execution of the OIZ project twice. In addition, stay of execution and annulment decisions were issued in the lawsuits filed in Edirne Administrative Court, and in the reports of 4 separate expert committees, attention was drawn to unlawfulness in the project.
“WE WILL DEFEND VILLAGE LIFE”
The villagers, who made a statement after the cancellation decision of the Council of State, said, “We want all the money spent for the Uzunköprü Mixed OIZ project, whose site selection and even plans are unlawful, to be returned to the institutions and organizations up to a penny. As Kavacık villagers, we will continue to protect agricultural lands and food, to live in the village not in words, but to defend our nature.”
ILLEGAL PROVEN
The lawyer of Kavacık residents, Bülent Kaçar, said the following regarding the annulment decision: “In four separate expert committee reports, three separate stay of execution decisions and three separate cancellation decisions, it has been definitively decided that the treasury lands intended to be established in OIZ cannot be used outside of the agricultural function. It has been proven time and again that the changes in the plans and all the actions of the ministries are unlawful. This project, whose site selection decision was annulled by the court, whose plans were canceled by the Council of State, and whose decision declaring the OIZ area non-agricultural, was annulled by the courts, turned out to be harmful to the public. We want the Uzunköprü Mixed OIZ project to be abandoned and public institutions and organizations to turn to services and projects that comply with the law and science.”
