On Oct. 3, 2006, the Taipei Dome build-operate-transfer (BOT) agreement was signed. The day before, the first press conference voicing opposition to the project was held.
After eight years of city residents fighting against government-business collusion, some have stuck to it, while others have joined in along the way to contribute their part. The idea of dismantling the dome is finally becoming mainstream public opinion and Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) faces the choice of either taking down the dome or removing adjacent commercial facilities.
Details of the Taipei Dome scandal are becoming increasingly clear as more information is made public, and by May 21 next year, everything will have been revealed. This whole mess, in which everyone loses, should be a lesson to all Taiwanese and help bring about a complete overhaul of the political system and its public policymaking process. Otherwise there will just be more unsolvable scandals.
First, the nation must rid itself of the attitude that once you get the go-ahead, you can do whatever you want. During the decisionmaking process, leaders should always have the courage to reflect on the original purpose of the project when confronted with an escalation of costs and be courageous enough to stop further losses. If they do not, costs will snowball into an overwhelming burden on society.
With regard to the Taipei Dome, it has been possible to use computer simulations which show that even in the best-case scenario, there would be no way to fully evacuate everyone from the complex in under an hour if there is an emergency. As long as the city cancels the Taipei Dome project, the little red dots on the screen will not represent the bodies of those who could die in a potential disaster.
The Taipei City Government once had an opportunity to put an end to the project. After the Green Party Taiwan carried out Taiwan’s first tree-hugging event in 2009, the Control Yuan issued a correction report indicating more than 30 deficiencies in Farglory Land Development Co’s (遠雄建設) BOT contract to develop the Taipei Dome complex. A renewed environmental impact assessment (EIA) came to the conclusion that the project should not go ahead.
However, after then-Taipei mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) was re-elected, Farglory released a remarkably similar EIA that was unexpectedly passed. A unanimous city council vote then passed a decision to turn the former Songshan Tobacco factory into a forest park.
Since Ko took office, there have been detailed investigations on five cases with major irregularities, and this is the first time that all the details of the Taipei Dome project have been openly discussed. As such, we have arrived in the era of the “common sense nation,” in which free lunches have become a thing of the past.
The 2009 BOT contract, which included zero royalty payments to the city, appeared to be about baseball, but in reality, 60 to 70 percent of the complex is comprised of commercial space. At the time, I heavily criticized the contract and tried to expose these problems in the media and obtain the support of opinion leaders, but often met with rejection.
These power-owning elites, who also are the ones who make their voices heard in the media, believe that this type of activity is normal and that the city’s residents demand an indoor baseball stadium. However, they argued that since the Taipei metro area lacks the means to maintain such an arena — as it will be difficult to balance the budget to support it — it is only natural that developers should be given excessive price and volume discounts.
The travesty of attaching shopping centers to other facilities so that they become the main attraction is playing out in many communities. However, this wave of globalization — which is tilted in the favor of financial groups — along with other neoliberal scams are beginning to collapse, as they are being exposed for what they are, and give way to the power of common sense. The city’s administration must ensure that complex financial barriers are not put in place to deny public participation.
Fundamentally, the city’s long-term planning requires a vision molded together with the residents themselves. At first, residents in the city center were opposed to a large dome project, so it was scaled down and became the Taipei Arena. The big dome was relocated to the nearby former Songshan Tobacco factory, which, despite having been designated as a historical site, was scaled down to make room for the dome.
In addition, the Northern Popular Music Center (北部流行音樂中心) is also being built in the Nangang District (南港) in eastern Taipei. Politicians are bullying weak bureaucrats and are completely out of touch with reality. They also disregard that the public’s preferred paradigm for urban development has shifted toward that of an ecological, livable city.
It seems that the city government might decide to tear down the dome, and that the only remaining problem is the cost. Regardless of whether Farglory breached their contract, is refusing to pay any fines or if the city government changes its policy and decides to dismantle the project in accordance with the contract and pay the contractor partial compensation, Taiwan is paying the price of democratic consolidation. These are the valuable lessons that we all should learn from this case.
Pan Han-shen is the strategic officer of the Trees Party.
Translated by Zane Kheir
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