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Rezoning request tests relationship between Ma, Hau
RUMOR?:
A newspaper reported that the KMT chairman was displeased with the new mayor's lack of cooperation, but Ma said this wasn't the case
By Mo Yan-chih
STAFF REPORTER
Wednesday, Jan 03, 2007, Page 3
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Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Ma Ying-jeou addresses a press conference at the KMT headquarters yesterday.
PHOTO: CNA
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Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday expressed the wish that the Taipei City Government would approve the rezoning of a property previously owned by the party, but Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) said he would stay out of the matter.
The KMT sold the building housing the Institute on Policy Research and Development for NT$4.3 billion (US$133 million) to Yuan Lih Construction Corp last August on the understanding that the land, which is zoned for government use, would be rezoned.
Responding to a United Daily News report that Ma, the former Taipei mayor, had asked Hau to continue to push for the rezoning but was dissatisfied with his passiveness in handling the issue, Hau said yesterday that the rezoning was the responsibility of the urban planning committee.
"The committee will make its decision based on the law and the public interest ... I think the KMT's party assets should be handled according to the regulations," said Hau, who is a KMT member.
Ma said the rezoning of the property was the responsibility of the city government and the Construction and Planning Agency under the Ministry of the Interior, rather than the KMT.
"The rezoning application was brought by the city government, not the KMT. [The city government] wanted to expand the property of a municipal elementary school, and so it asked the KMT for help," Ma said while meeting with the press at KMT headquarters yesterday.
During his term as Taipei mayor, Ma undertook to help expand the property of the Taipei Municipal Yongjiang Elementary School by donating some of the adjacent land on which the institute was situated in return for the rezoning of the property.
"The KMT didn't ask the city government for help, it is the city government's job to push for the rezoning ... It was in my capacity as mayor that I asked [former KMT] chairman Lien Chan (連戰) for help at that time," Ma said.
The KMT could be accused of cheating Yuan Lih Construction into buying a property that can't be developed or resold if the rezoning application is refused.
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