Restoration / Architecture · Design and Construction
Guide · YOY Mimarlık
How does the Conservation Board process work?
No intervention may be made on a registered building without board approval. This guide describes the process from the owner’s point of view: what goes into the file, how the board decides, how long it takes and what tends to slow it down.
What is the board and what does it do?
Regional Boards for the Conservation of Cultural Property are the official bodies that assess and decide on every intervention proposed for registered immovable property under Law No. 2863. For our projects in Hatay the counterpart is the Hatay Regional Board for the Conservation of Cultural Property.
The board is a panel of architects, art historians, archaeologists, urban planners and lawyers. It assesses your file not only technically but also in terms of conservation principles and urban context. An approach of “as long as the drawing is correct” therefore does not work; the decisions have to be justified.
Intervention carried out without board approval is an offence: it brings administrative fines and an obligation to restore the building to its former state. Worse, a repair made with unsuitable materials usually causes an irreversible loss of information.
What goes into the file?
The contents of the file vary with the state of the building, but the core is always the same: scaled sheets and the reports that justify them.
A typical file contains the cadastral situation and site plan; survey sheets (floor plans, ceiling and floor-structure plans, roof plan, elevations, sections, architectural details); material and damage/decay mapping; restitution sheets with a reliability legend; the restoration or reconstruction project with its intervention notations; a photographic album; and a separate explanatory report for each stage.
The reliability legend matters especially: in the restitution, which information rests on a document, which is inferred from similar buildings and which is an assumption is shown separately on the drawing. The board assesses the project largely through this distinction.
Steps and timing
The process runs in this order: fieldwork and documentation → project production → submission of the file to the board → placement on the board’s agenda → deliberation and decision → revision and resubmission if required → approval → construction → construction supervision.
Let us be honest about timing: the fieldwork and project stage is within your control and ours, and for a courtyard house it takes from a few weeks to a few months. The board stage depends on the agenda and is outside our control; boards convene at intervals, and the volume of files in the region is the determining factor.
A request for revision is not a failure but an ordinary part of the process. The board often asks for further research, the clarification of a detail or the justification of an intervention decision. What matters is answering the revision quickly and completely.
What slows the process down?
In our experience three things mainly slow the process. The first is an incomplete file: skipping a stage, or leaving the report without justification, gets the file returned before it even reaches the agenda.
The second is a restitution resting on weak evidence. If an undocumented element is presented as certain, the board rightly asks for further research and the round begins again. Showing the limits of the evidence openly from the start produces a faster result.
The third is new findings on site. After construction begins, a blocked-up arch or an original floor beneath a later one may be uncovered; these are reported to the board and the project is revised. This is unavoidable, but a good excavation survey removes most of these surprises in advance.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I have to run the process myself?
No. From file preparation to presentation before the board, from following up revisions to supervising the works after approval, we run the process on the owner’s behalf from a single hand. What is expected of you is to share the documents you hold and to give your view at the decision points.
What happens if the board rejects the file?
Outright rejection is rare; the board usually steers the project by requesting revisions. Where there is a genuine rejection, the reasoning is written into the decision, and the project can be reworked along those lines and resubmitted. There is also a route of appeal. What matters is reading the reasoning correctly: most rejections stem from a proposed intervention that conflicts with conservation principles.
After approval, can I do as I wish?
No. Approval is given for the submitted project to be carried out exactly as drawn. Departing from the project on site can invalidate the approval and bring sanctions. If a change becomes necessary during construction — and it often does — it too must be reported to the board and approved. Construction supervision exists precisely for this.