Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) yesterday vowed to turn the Shezidao (社子島) peninsula into Taipei’s Manhattan within 11 years after a long-stalled development project for the area passed the review of the Council for Economic Planning and Development yesterday.
The city government will budget NT$70 billion (US$2.1 billion) over 11 years to develop the 240-hectare area, including flood-prevention construction, new housing projects and recreational facilities.
“The development of Shezidao used to seem like an impossible dream, but now we can finally transform the area... We will turn Shezidao into the Manhattan of Taipei,” Hau told a press conference yesterday at Taipei City Hall.
Ting Yu-chun (丁育群), commissioner of Taipei City’s Department of Urban Development, said the city government will start purchasing land from local residents and begin flood prevention construction as soon as July.
Hau said that the city government would make the interests of the district’s more than 10,000 residents its priority, promising to help them by providing better housing.
The Shezidao peninsula is a low-lying area in Taipei City that suffers from flooding during typhoons, and many illegal remain in the area.
The city government proposed the project to redevelop the area and solve the flooding problem 10 years ago, but it has been stalled because of opposition from Taipei County, which feared that flooding construction work in Shezidao could force the water to flow to low-lying areas in Sanchong (三重) and Lujhou (蘆洲).
Hau said the Taipei County Government presented an urban development project for Sanchong and Lujhou cities to solve any possible flooding.
The city government will conduct an environmental impact assessment for the area while proceeding with the development project, he said.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
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