With only a day left until the Taipei City Government’s deadline for Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to resolve the Taipei Dome’s safety issues, the city yesterday allowed the group to partially resume work at the site after it met a key government demand.
The Taipei Department of Urban Development had demanded that Farglory and its architects affix their seals to six work proposals, but the group had insisted that it was not necessary.
Just before a regularly scheduled review meeting between Farglory officials and representatives of the department, the group delivered six work proposals made in accordance with a Taipei High Administrative Court ruling that it had to address safety risks posed by construction — all of which had the appropriate seals affixed, department division chief Wei Kuo-chung (魏國忠) said.
The six proposals cover fixing damage to the Dome caused during the suspension of work on the project, building drainage systems, installing titanium panels on the roof, applying intumescent paint, constructing bleachers and finishing the outline of an underground parking lot, Wei said.
The department also approved another proposal submitted by Farglory to cover the Dome and four other buildings in the complex — a department store, a hotel, an office building and a movie theater — with curtain walls, he said.
In related news, Taipei Department of Legal Affairs Commissioner Yang Fang-ling (楊芳玲) said on the sidelines of the news conference that tomorrow was the deadline for Farglory to act on safety issues surrounding the complex.
However, that contradicts Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲) statement on Friday last week that Farglory would be given three more months to mediate with the city to prevent the contract from being dissolved.
Asked to clarify the conflicting comments, Yang reiterated that Farglory would not be given three more months and a final decision would be made tomorrow.
If the city does dissolve the contract tomorrow, it would mean that it has eliminated the option to request the coalition of banks that loaned Farglory money for the project to take over the project, as the option must be exercised while the contract is still valid.
Article 20 of the city’s contract with Farglory states that should any dispute regarding the contract arise, a mediation committee should be established within one month.
“The group is drawing up plans to complete construction of the project in line with the city government’s safety requirements,” Farglory spokesman Jacky Yang (楊舜欽) said by telephone.
Additional reporting by Crystal Hsu
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