The Fo Guang Shan Monastery (佛光山寺) in Greater Kaohsiung was fined NT$450,000 (US$15,000) last week for ignoring development restrictions imposed by the Greater Kaohsiung Government’s Water Resources Bureau and illegally carrying out construction projects on a slope.
Along with the fine, the bureau on Tuesday last week barred the monastery from submitting any development plans in the same area for the next two years under articles 12 and 23 of the Soil and Water Conservation Act (水土保持法).
The violations involved construction projects carried out on a slope near the monastery’s Fo Guang Avenue, whose site overlaps with that of the Buddha Memorial Center, the bureau said.
Soil and water conservation specialists arrived at the monastery on Monday last week and found that the slope, which used to be covered with vegetation, had been reduced to barren land, with excavators operating on it.
Even though the bureau in March 2012 issued an order barring further development along the avenue over soil and water conservation concerns, monastery administrators decided to continue with the project, which is still under way and now covers a 4.5-hectare area, officials said.
Water Resources Bureau Chief Engineer Tsai Chang-chang (蔡長展) said that the monastery has been fined five times for building on the slope, with the penalties amounting to more than NT$1.93 million.
Monastery administrators have been quoted by the Chinese-language China Times newspaper as saying that they chose to bypass standard application procedures because they “cannot wait for the [official] procedures to be conducted.”
An official with the Soil and Water Conservation Bureau who declined to be named said that the construction projects along Fo Guang Avenue lack the approval of the authorities as they require a soil and water conservation plan, a development plan and land-use change approval.
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