Minister of the Interior Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) yesterday rebutted reports that Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) was making a policy U-turn because of pressure from the construction industry.
The Chinese-language China Times reported yesterday that Wu had asked the Ministry of the Interior to reconsider a policy to exclude eaves and rain sheds attached to a house from being counted as part of the house when calculating the total surface area of a property.
The newspaper said Wu intervened after attending a banquet with representatives from construction firms on Wednesday.
Construction firms have long included the area under the eaves of a house when calculating the total price of the building.
In April, however, Wu said it was not reasonable for homebuyers to pay an average of NT$500,000 to NT$600,000 for the area under eaves or rain sheds. He used the analogy that consumers should not pay for the rope around a crab when buying the crab.
The ministry then announced that space under the eaves or rain shed of a home would no longer be considered when pricing houses, citing the move as another measure to combat skyrocketing real estate prices.
Although construction firms began pressuring the ministry to reverse its decision as soon as the policy was announced, the ministry had stuck to its guns.
However, the situation seemed to have changed after the premier met with industry representatives on Wednesday because Wu then asked the ministry to reconsider the policy.
At a press conference yesterday morning, Jiang denied that the government was making a U-turn under pressure from construction firms.
He also denied Wu had attended a “banquet” with industry representatives on Wednesday.
“Whether to count in the area under eaves or rain sheds has been a complicated and controversial issue,” Jiang said. “Some people think that since the space is there, it should be accounted for, while others are worried that it would create a loophole for construction firms to inflate the surface area of a house.”
Construction firm representatives had met Wu on Wednesday, but it had simply been a chance for the premier to listen to different opinions, Jiang said.
“It was not a banquet, it was just a simple meeting that happened to take place around meal time, so the Executive Yuan prepared boxed meals for each of the participants to take home,” he said.
“The ministry will hold more meetings to hear what different people, academics and experts have to say, and then it will make a final decision in October,” Jiang said.
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