“Sensitive” urban renewal projects should be handled directly by the Taipei City Government, Taipei City Government Department of Urban Planning Commissioner Lin Jou-min (林洲民) said yesterday, while announcing new job openings amid the department’s move to expand its role in urban planning.
“If we are not the implementers of urban renewal, we will not have the power to decide plans and would end up being controlled by special interests,” Lin said, adding that the municipal government would take on urban renewal projects that are perceived as “difficult” or “controversial,” while leaving ordinary projects to private firms.
He described the announcement of 10 new positions within the department as “testing the waters” for further departmental expansion, to meet the demands of a new and broader vision of the government’s role in urban renewal.
“We will prioritize urban renewal,” Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said.
“For this purpose, we need to bring in younger people to draft plans for the municipality’s future,” Ko said.
Lin said that bringing in talent from a wide array of backgrounds would enable Taipei to guarantee what he termed “open-space quality” in urban renewal.
“The design standards to be used for the process will not be just ‘numbers,’” he said.
The pursuit of “open-space quality” aims to guarantee that there is sufficient space for people to congregate, alongside facilities for exercise and child care, he added.
He said that by taking into account the interests of all stakeholders, the capital would be able to rise above the arguments and protests over profit allotments that have characterized previous urban renewal efforts, adding that new employees should be on the front lines of a new process emphasizing vigorous public participation.
Lin cited the historic Wenmeng building (文萌樓) as a prime example of urban renewal projects that should be handled by the government.
The privately owned former brothel in Taipei’s Datong District (大同) is a designated historical site, but has been mired in controversy since its new owners sought to expel the Collective of Sex Workers and Supporters (COWAS) that is based at the site, which led to the property’s removal from a surrounding urban renewal project in September last year.
“What civic power can do is say that I have heard everyone and I hope to look after everyone,” Lin said, adding that he believes that the municipal government must rise to the challenge of handling the matter.
He added that Taipei must accept the challenge of building affordable low-income housing, which would demonstrate that such housing can be constructed without harming the development of surrounding areas.
In response, COWAS secretary Wu Juo-ying (吳若瑩) said the group is not opposed in principle to the idea of the building being included in government-directed urban renewal, as long as the building becomes publicly owned along the way and its owner gains no additional profit.
Wu called asked the municipal government how urban renewal involving the site would be conducted.
The department said that a list of specific projects is being drafted and is set to be announced on the 100th day of the mayor’s tenure.
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