Residents of Taipei City's Wenshan district are opposed to renewed plans to build a 10-story building that would be the final resting place for the bones or ashes of Taiwan's dead.
Despite strong opposition, the Taipei City Government recently allowed construction of the hillside ossuary to go forward.
Local residents and a city councilor inspected the site yesterday, saying the hillside location was unsafe and would be susceptible to mudslides.
"There are way too many construction projects that are approved by the city government that turn out to be disasters in the end," said New Party City Councilman Lee Ching-yuan (
The ossuary has been controversial ever since the construction project was first approved in 1990. After years of protest and strong opposition from local residents, the project was finally halted in September 1998.
Developers behind the project completed a new environmental impact assessment on July 25, allowing the city government to give a green light to the ossuary.
Because the ossuary will be built on a hillside, local residents are fearful of what may happen in the event of a mudslide. They point the 1997 Lincoln Mansions (林肯大郡) tragedy, in which 28 residents lost their lives in a mudslide after the retaining wall of the Taipei County complex collapsed.
Investigations into that disaster found that the homes had been built on a slope susceptible to mudslides. In addition, investigators found that developers of the Lincoln Mansions had constructed more buildings than the slope could support.
Wenshan residents who live below the Chihnan Temple (指南宮), which will be near the proposed ossuary, fear a similar disaster.
Lee also asked the city to conduct an evaluation of the project's construction area to make sure it's carried out according to plan.
"Although the temple plans to develop 30 percent of the project zone, it has done much more than that," Lee said.
Zoning regulations stipulate that construction of a development located within a tourism area should not exceed 50 percent of the project's entire area.
The temple is located in a tourism zone. The temple's owners plan to build a 50,000-unit, 10-floor columbarium and an adjacent seven-story parking tower. The structures would take up roughly one hectare of a 4.3-hectare plot of land.
Lee also noted that structures in some areas would be built on too steep a slope. Current rules say structures cannot be built on inclines greater than 21 degrees, but certain parts of the slope reach 29 degrees, Lee said.
But Lee Tzu-chang (李子璋), a planner in the city's bureau of urban development, said that the legal slope limit for the project was 32 degrees instead of 21 degrees when the temple was first approved in 1994.
Hsieh Chih-feng (謝啟峰), warden of Wanhsing borough, said many local residents have expressed worries over the project.
"We have about 1,500 families living here," Hsieh said. "We'd really hate to see anything unfortunate happen, especially during the typhoon season."
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