The Ministry of the Interior yesterday poured cold water on a plan by Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) to build houses for the socially disadvantaged on a plot of land currently used by Air Force Headquarters.
“Right now, what we’re looking at is between 20 and 30 plots of land belonging to [the Ministry of Finance’s] National Property Administration and the Ministry of National Defense in the Greater Taipei area that could be used to build social housing,” Minister of the Interior Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) told an Internal Administration Committee meeting at the legislature.
Asked by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Liu Shen-liang (劉盛良) whether the land on which the Air Force Headquarters is located was among the plots of land being considered, Jiang said: “No.”
Addressing reporters during recess, Jiang said the ministry had not received formal notice from the Taipei City Government concerning the land or plans to use it for social housing.
“Social housing is a policy goal we’re determined to implement as quickly as possible,” Jiang said. “The central government will work with local governments to find suitable land.”
Construction and Planning Agency Director-General Yeh Shih-wen (葉世文), who was also at the meeting, told lawmakers that the location for social housing should be carefully selected, as “the real estate price of the location would have an impact on rental prices.”
Last week, Hau said he would push for construction of rental apartments for disadvantaged individuals, families and young people.
Hau said the land on which the Air Force Headquarters stood on Renai Road would be one of the locations for the social housing projects.
However, Hau’s plan has not received the support of the central government.
Earlier this week, Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) told the legislature the plan “has not been settled yet,” while Minister of Finance Lee Sush-der (李述德) said the selection of the location “is not very appropriate.”
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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