Tainan residents fighting a running battle against the municipal government over plans to demolish their homes to make way for a railway project said they would appeal a court decision that sided with an environmental impact report’s legality.
In the decision by the High Administrative Court yesterday, judges upheld the legality of the environmental impact report for the project, which was commissioned by the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) and submitted in 2009.
The case can be appealed.
Photo: Huang Hsin-po, Taipei Times
The lawsuit, filed by residents who organized a self-help association, said that the report was unlawful, filled with oversights and deficiencies, and had not addressed many issues raised by residents.
After the ruling was announced, association attorney Thomas Chan (詹順貴) said he and residents regret the decision and would appeal.
The plan is part of a large public-sector construction project by the city government to move an 8.23km stretch of railway in downtown Tainan to the east and underground.
Tainan Mayor William Lai (賴清德) promised that households affected by the project would be financially compensated and also given the opportunity to buy land for a reasonable price near a planned new Tainan railway station.
City government officials and urban planners said the relocation project will join and integrate parts of Tainan divided by the railway, facilitate traffic flow and revitalize the city’s economic development.
The original plan was to expropriate a strip of land to build temporary tracks while the main project was under way and return the land to the owners when work was finished.
However, the final plan by the Tainan City Government calls for the permanent expropriation of the land, which prompted protests among residents from about 400 households.
EPA officials had testified that thorough studies had been done for the report and that they had convened four committee meetings to finalize it.
It is not necessary to conduct another environmental assessment for the proposed project, they said.
However, residents said the project would seize more land and affect more people than originally planned, adding that the report failed to address concerns about the potential impact of relocation on living conditions, mental health, as well as social aspects.
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