New “pre-approved construction” for underground construction throughout the Taipei Dome site was announced yesterday by the Taipei City Department of Urban Development following talks with subcontractors of Farglory Group (遠雄集團).
The talks followed a city government-ordered halt to construction of the controversial development. The city halted construction last week on grounds that Farglory had failed to present a plan for ameliorating damage to the neighboring Songshan Tobacco Factory historic site and the Taipei MRT’s Bannan (板南) Line.
After preliminary talks on Friday last week, Farglory was allowed to resume “pre-approved construction” on the foundations of the site’s southern side for safety reasons.
Yesterday talks focused on expanding the scope of “pre-approved ” construction, with discussions addressing resuming work on foundations in other locations of the site, filling in site holes, stabilizing the Dome’s frame and completing the installation of a lightning protection system.
Meanwhile, the city government’s handling of the Taipei Dome and other controversial construction contracts drew criticism from Taipei City councilors in the questioning that followed Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲) first official report on the subject to the Taipei City Council.
Other projects included in Ko’s report were the Taipei Twin Towers, Taipei New Horizon, Syntrend Creative Park and MeHAS City developments.
City councilors, who started lining up at 6:15am to register to question the mayor, criticized the city’s secrecy and a lack of progress in its talks with developers and contracters.
“After five months, the city government has not won a cent more of site royalties, nor has it demolished even a brick of the Dome,” Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Wang Hong-wei (王鴻薇) said.
Wang said Ko should show how he has made a “substantial contribution” to resolving the controversial contracts on which he reported.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) council caucus whip Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤) criticized the city administration for continuing to be “bogged down” in its investigations into the construction projects.
Under the rules governing the Clean Government Committee, the investigations should have been wrapped up last month, she said.
DPP Taipei City Councilor Tung Chung-yan (童仲彥) said the city government should demand that the Department of Transportation and Communications provide measurements to demonstrate whether safety of the Taiwan Railway and Taiwan High Speed Rail lines, which run north of the Dome construction site, had been impacted.
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