`Historic' standoff in Hsinchu

In what is likely to become a precedent-setting struggle, residents of Hsinchu City are locked in a standoff against the city government over a plan to bring down a recently designated cultural heritage site.

The Hsinchu City government recently canceled a plan to dismantle the old dormitory of Hsin Chih-ping (辛志平), a former principal of Hsinchu Boy's High School (新竹中學) and one of Taiwan's most famous educators, after the school's alumni filed charges of official misconduct against the city.

The alumni accuse mayor Tsai Jen-chien (蔡仁堅) of flouting the law by refusing to officially acknowledge the house's status as a cultural heritage site.

"The house has been designated as a city-level heritage site. The city government can't simply refuse to acknowledge it," said Gibran Do (杜文?? ), one of the school's alumni who filed the charges.

But Chui Mei-feng (璩美鳳), director of the city's cultural affairs bureau, said the city has discretionary power over when to make an official announcement about a building's protected status.

Hsin's dormitory, a one-story cypress structure standing on city-owned land, fell into neglect after his death in 1985.

The Hsinchu City government initially planned to demolish the house in August of last year to make way for a parking lot. But the city was forced to postpone the demolition after alumni submitted an application for the dormitory to be designated as a cultural heritage site.

The Cultural Heritage Preservation Law (文化資產保護法) requires local governments to stop any plan to demolish potential heritage sites, and to form a committee of independent scholars to review its status once local residents file an application.

City circumvents committee

In November, a committee of six scholars unanimously designated Hsin's residence as a city-level heritage site. Reluctant to give up the car park project, the city government came up with a new proposal, whereby the house would be dismantled piece by piece, to be put back in place after the underground car park has been completed.

The city appears determined to couple the announcement of the house's status with the car park proposal, which it believes is a sufficient compromise.

"The scholars have tentatively agreed to an `adaptive reuse' plan," Chui said.

But Huang Jui-mao (黃瑞茂), an architect from Tamkang University, said the review committee's purpose was to decide on the site's status -- not on a construction project.

"The text of the committee's final conclusion does not endorse the city's proposal, even though some members did raise their personal opinions," Huang said.

The city's plan has also touched off a dispute between scholars over exactly what it means to preserve a heritage site.

Fu Chao-ching (傅朝卿), an architect from National Cheng Kung University, finds the city's plan acceptable, citing examples of successful construction such as a public space project at St Paul's Cathedral in London, and an underground mall at the Louvre museum in Paris. Fu admitted that the two projects did not involve the dismantling of buildings, but said he believed that such an act should not be difficult in the case of a cypress house.

Meeting standards

But Yeh Nai-chi (葉乃齊), an urban planning professor at the Chinese Culture University, argued that the city had not been able to come up with a design that conforms to standards required by the heritage site law. "For example, the above-ground structures [of the car park] must not block the way to the site, which is a very small area," Yeh said. "The merits of such `adaptive reuse' projects can only be determined after the design is completed," Yeh said.