Sweeping public housing construction plans are financially infeasible, Taipei City Councilor Wang Hong-wei (王鴻薇) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) said yesterday.
Wang said that costs for housing projects have already far exceeded Ko’s campaign promises, with an estimated NT$29.5 billion (US$944.7 million) in land and construction costs for the 3,691 units announced thus far.
Sweeping public housing construction plans are central to the agenda of Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), with the administration promising to put 25,000 new units up for rent by the end of Ko’s first term.
If a similar amount to what has already been spent is used on future housing units, reaching Ko’s goal of 50,000 units in eight years would require NT$400 billion — four times the amount Ko promised during his campaign, Wang said.
Such expenses would be extremely difficult to accommodate within the city’s annual NT$150 billion budget, raising the prospect of decades of austerity if debt is issued to finance construction.
Given that public housing rental rates are below market prices, Wang said it was questionable whether the costs could be recouped from rent.
She added that high management expenses would also make it difficult for the city break even, with the city government estimating that NT$1.25 billion would be required annually to manage the first 25,000 units of public housing.
Chien She-fang (簡瑟芳), chief of the Housing Planning Division in Taipei’s Department of Urban Development, said that the city government would have to issue an estimated NT$80 billion in debt to finance the construction of 20,000 units still to be built during Ko’s first term. She said that Wang’s cost estimates inflated land acquisition costs, failing to take city-owned land into consideration.
About 40 percent of the cost of the already announced units is to be spent on acquiring the four pieces of land from the national government on which the units are to be constructed.
While the city government hopes to use rental income to pay back construction costs, it is still not possible to precisely estimate income due to continued uncertainty over location and construction details, she said.
In response to questions at the city council, Ko said that construction of public housing would only proceed if the amount of debt required is manageable.
He added that the city hoped the Legislative Yuan would pass legislation allowing for more favorable terms for use of land owned by the central government.
Ko also said that Taipei’s budget next year would include no new debt, while declining to agree to an upper limit on the amount of new debt his administration might create.
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