While the homes of four families in Dapu (大埔) in Miaoli County’s Jhunan Township (竹南) were being forcefully dismantled yesterday, a group of residents led by Miaoli County Council Speaker Yu Chung-tien (游忠鈿) were in Taipei slamming opponents of the demolition.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators Chen Chao-ming (陳超明) and Hsu Yao-chang (徐耀昌), both from Miaoli, which has only two legislative seats, scheduled a press conference in support of the Miaoli County Government to coincide with the demolition.
“Out of a total of 38 county councilors in Miaoli, 32 are here today. Supporters of the four families have stood in the way of the county’s development. As county councilors, we would have stopped the demolition if the county government had done anything wrong,” Yu said.
Photo: Wang Min-wei, Taipei Times
The four houses were flattened to make way for a 154 hectare development project, which includes the expansion of the Jhunan Science Park, erecting public facilities and establishing a residential commercial district. Farmland and houses on 136 hectares were expropriated for the project.
Yu said he wished that the residents of the four houses, owned by Ko Cheng-fu (柯成福), Huang Fu-ji (黃福記), Peng Hsiu-chun (彭秀春) and Chu Su (朱樹), can look up to people who donate land to build roads and bridges, without expecting compensation.
“Only once the four houses were torn down could justice and fairness be fulfilled. If these houses were not torn down, how would the other 39 families whose houses had already been dismantled endure the pain? The [families owning the four houses] should make public interest a priority,” Chen said.
Other than labeling the four families “obstacles” to local development, supporters of the development project called students, academics and activists from various non-governmental organizations backing the four families “outsiders.”
“Miaoli is a home to us local people, not to them [supporters of the four families]. What are they? Students and human rights activists,” Chen said.
Dapu Village Warden Cheng Wen-ching (鄭文進) said if the four houses were left standing they would pose a danger to the public because they would block traffic, but demolishing them did not leave the families homeless, because they would get other houses to live in.
The issue was not about a majority of people in Miaoli overwhelming the four families, but about public interest and road safety, the county government’s economic development department director Shen Yu-pin (沈又斌) said.
If the four houses remained standing, they could block traffic and cause fatal traffic accidents. If that happened, the Miaoli County Government would be held criminally liable, Shen said.
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by
RSS