Taipei City’s Department of Urban Development yesterday said that bidding for land around the Taipei International Airport (Songshan), which started on Sept. 18, will end on Sunday and the results of the bidding will be released on Sunday.
The bidding is part of a project spearheaded by the Civil Aeronautics Administration, which has suggested expanding the city government’s urban renewal plan by incorporating land around the airport to better integrate the airport with the general plan for the city and achieve its aim of turning it into a commercial airport within the nation’s capital.
The changes would impact on how Taipei makes plans for its future development, the department said.
The airport will be at the very center of the rezoned area, which would stretch as far north as the National Highway No. 1, bordered by the Keelung River to the east and Nanjing East Road and Xinsheng North Road to the south and west respectively, the department said.
An extensive analysis of how to maximize land use, what type of transportation system would be built, what kinds of industries would be allowed, what public facilities it would support and how ecological preservation would be handled still has to be conducted, the department said.
The department added that there are still key issues that have to be resolved, including obtaining rights to the land that the Ministry of National Defense is selling and how they are to be developed.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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