The eight-year struggle to start up work on the mountain has been largely slowed by the complicated bureaucracy in Turkey, but now the mountain resort is going to be re-created on a model that takes Davos and Zermatt in Switzerland as its examples.
Since coming to power in 2002, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) has made reconstruction on Uludağ one of the top priorities on its agenda. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan himself has ordered that work be done to get rid of the less than aesthetic aspects of the popular Turkish winter resort and to instead transform Uludağ into a conference and tourism center akin to Switzerland's Davos resort. But up until now moves made by the AK Party aimed at seeing any transformations take place in Uludağ have been blocked by the Supreme Council of Monuments, the same body that has blocked the İstanbul Cultural Center Project. Battles between the council and various factions hoping to see changes in Uludağ have been sufficient to stop anything from being done so far.
Just as hopes were beginning to fade on the Uludağ front, Prime Minister Erdoğan made a July 2 visit to Uludağ, accompanied by Minister of Culture and Tourism Ertuğrul Günay, Minister of the Environment and Forestry Veysel Eroğlu, and State Minister Faruk Çelik. On the occasion of this visit, Erdoğan gave the go-ahead for the last time for the Ministry of Environment and Forestry to bypass the Supreme Council of Monuments on decisions regarding Uludağ. After a careful inspection of the mountain resort area by officials from the Ministry of the Environment and Forestry, permission was granted for the implementation of the Uludağ Greater Development Project, with no voice being granted to the Supreme Council of Monuments in this decision. The only path now open to the council in terms of stopping this project is to take the case to court.
What is set to actually happen in Uludağ?
Determined to see change occur on Uludağ, the prime minister has now appointed three government ministers to work solely on this project. At this point, within the framework of the Uludağ Greater Development Project, all current structures on Uludağ labeled as unaesthetic are to be destroyed. Currently, there are 17 hotels and 16 guest lodges with a total bed capacity of 5,000 on Uludağ. The guest lodges are all owned by public institutions.
The above-mentioned guest lodges in Uludağ are notably the bulk of the structures which have been labeled as unaesthetic. Among these publicly owned lodges are ones belonging to the military, the police force and the Prime Ministry. Interestingly, the razing of unattractive structures in Uludağ has begun with a guest lodge that actually belongs to the Ministry of the Environment and Forestry.
The aerial cable car, which has not received so much as even one coat of paint since its first day of operation, will not be included in restoration efforts at the resort. Instead, a new aerial cable car reaching all the way up to Uludağ's highest point, Sarıalan, is to be built. With this new aerial cable car, a total of 18,000 people daily will be able to travel to the top if they wish.
Other goals in the general work to be done on Uludağ are to create a more unifying architectural theme on the mountain and to build a large conference center and a large shopping center.
As for skiing, current plans are also to build what will be Europe's longest ski run in Uludağ's Alaçam region. There will be absolutely no other buildings or structures allowed on or around the ski runs. For the non-winter months, the Uludağ development project also aims to see the construction of six tennis courts and six soccer fields on the mountain to allow for a range of summer activities as well as winter ones. When this is completed, both national and international soccer teams will have the opportunity to hold their summer training camps at Uludağ.
Under normal circumstances the first stage of the projected Uludağ project would have been completed in 2008, however, conflicts between various government ministries prevented this from happening. The planned projects are due to start in 2010, when the conflicts have been completely resolved.
State Minister Çelik: Prime minister's dream to be realized
Many of the planned Uludağ projects for the coming years are to take place under the build-operate-transfer (BOT) method. In fact, within this framework officials are now projecting nearly $40 million in investment in the region. In talking about the extensive Uludağ project, deputy from Bursa and State Minister Faruk Çelik said: “This project was prepared taking its lead from the prime minister. Our prime minister had a dream regarding Uludağ, and we have been struggling for the past five years to realize this dream. We have met many bureaucratic barriers along the way, but the struggle came to an end during the prime minister's visit to the region along with Environmental and Forestry Minister Eroğlu and Culture and Tourism Minister Ertuğrul Günay in July. In preparing this project, we have visited both Davos and Zermatt. We have studied other examples of mountain resorts in the world. We will turn this great dream into a reality."
Speaking about the resolute nature with which they are approaching the Uludağ project, Eroğlu told Sunday's Zaman that "we attach great importance to Uludağ. And as it was our prime minister who gave us the order to turn Uludağ into a Davos. We are working to see Uludağ turned into one of the world's most beautiful centers of tourism. We want to build a series of perfect facilities in Uludağ. We have held contests that focus both on aesthetics and the importance of nature in deciding which plans to use. We have now completed our plans. We will completely redesign Uludağ in a two-stage project. And Uludağ will, in the end, have Europe's longest ski run."
At this point, it is anticipated that both the first and second stages of the ambitious Uludağ project will be completed by the end of 2020. There are to be 29-year management permits granted to hotels in Uludağ. And in order to ease the concerns of the owners of the 19 hotels currently in Uludağ, these owners will be granted the rights to build new hotels as long they follow the framework of the proposed project.
On another note, officials now say that with the rebuilding of Uludağ, there will be a much stronger pull for Arab tourists visiting the region for skiing vacations.
At this point, the mayor of Bursa, Recep Altepe, appears to be devoting a large part of his schedule to helping achieve the Uludağ dream that so many people hope will become a reality. Altepe noted that despite enormous changes made in global winter tourism centers in recent times, no significant changes have been made to Uludağ in the past 50 years. He noted that thus far conflicts between bureaucracies over who has the final word in Uludağ -- one of Turkey's 41 national parks -- have prevented headway from being made in the Uludağ plans. But Altepe noted that the prime minister's efforts to smooth things over have been successful and that as such, the massive, two-stage overhaul of this popular Turkish winter resort "might even take place by the end of 2020."
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