The Taipei City government and Executive Yuan have reached a tentative consensus over the future of the former Air Force Command Headquarters site, Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said yesterday.
He said that in a meeting late on Tuesday night with Vice Premier Simon Chang (張善政), the municipal government agreed with the national government’s new plans to turn the complex into a creative park.
While the Executive Yuan had intended to construct housing developments on much of the site, Premier Mao Chi-kuo (毛治國) said last month that the site and buildings would be preserved in its entirety.
Ko also acknowledged that the Executive Yuan’s new plans would create complications for his initiative to expand the city’s supply of public rental housing.
“There is not much vacant land owned by the city, with most being in the hands of the national government,” Ko said.
According to previous plans to develop the complex — which occupies 7.15 hectares of prime real estate in the heart of the capital, the city government would have been entitled to 40 percent of the site after a rezoning process, land that it intended to trade with the national government for space at a former army maintenance depot in Xinyi District (信義), as well as other sites, said Liu Hui-wen (劉惠雯), head engineer and spokeswoman for the city’s Department of Urban Development.
She said that the former air force site would not need to be rezoned under new Executive Yuan plans, meaning that the city would have to compensate the national government for any land appropriated to construct housing developments.
Ko said that while the city government would be willing to provide compensation for the land, the specific amount paid should be less than that what would be paid by private firms, adding that further talks with the national government would be needed to set terms.
The Executive Yuan said that it welcomed other local governments to make proposals for the site.
Executive Yuan spokesperson Sun Lih-chyun (孫立群), citing Chang, said that a public call for proposals for the use of the site is to be launched at the end of this month, adding that “the Taipei City Government is welcome, as are all other cities and counties, to submit proposals.”
Meanwhile, Ko said that he had brought up the issue of NT$10 billion (US$318 million) that was supposed to be paid to the provincial government by Taipei’s Department of Rapid Transportation Systems for the construction of the Zhonghe-Xinlu MRT Line.
After the provincial government was streamlined in 1998, the city never received the money, he said.
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