The long-stalled Taipei Dome project passed the final review process yesterday, obtaining approval from Taipei City’s Urban Design Review Committee, with construction scheduled to start in October.
The approval was the final step for the project after the city’s Environmental Impact Assessment Review Committee granted conditional approval on May 26. The urban design committee said the contractor should make adjustments to the plans in accordance with the requirements of the environmental impact committee before beginning construction.
The environmental impact committee required the developer of the project — Farglory Group — to reduce the size of the complex’s commercial facilities, including a shopping mall, movie theater, hotel and office space by 17 percent to 202,610m2, and increase parking space to 187,965m2.
The conditions also included adding another lane to Zhong-xiao E Road, presenting a traffic plan that avoids congestion in nearby residential areas and acquiring environmentally friendly building certification.
Ting Yu-chun (丁育群), urban design committee chair and commissioner of Taipei City’s Urban Development Department, said the developer must revise its plans to meet the conditions before applying for a construction license.
Janus Lee (李柏熹), manager of Farglory’s operation administration department, said the company would make the adjustments immediately and apply for a construction license by July 2, with preliminary plans for construction to begin in October.
The urban design committee’s decision was met with protests from environmentalists and local residents, who said the project would have a negative impact on traffic flow and the environment.
Taiwan Green Party spokesman Pan Han-shen (潘翰聲) said various committee members had expressed concerns about the project in previous review meetings, but the city government insisted on approving the project. Pan urged Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) to hold a public debate with environmentalists on whether the city needs another commercial complex in downtown Xinyi District (信義).
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift