The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) yesterday halted the Shanyuan Palms Holiday Villas project in Taitung County over concerns about the proposed site, which is zoned as a coastal protection area.
The Coastal Zone Management Act (海岸管理法), passed in February, requires the central government and Taitung County Government to coordinate and outline coastal protection areas by Tuesday next week.
The project’s proposed site overlooks Shanyuan Beach in Dulan Bay (都蘭灣), which has a high probability of being zoned as a coastal protection area, meaning that other than public infrastructure and coastal management agencies, all other developments would be prohibited or restricted, a Ministry of the Interior representative said during an environmental impact assessment (EIA) meeting yesterday.
Photo: CNA
The site is likely to be classified as a “major scenic area,” meaning it would be in a class 1 protection zone, in which case the project would have to be terminated, a ministry representative said.
EPA Minister Wei Kuo-yen (魏國彥), who chaired the meeting, said that when a project is regulated by more than one law, the latest law should serve as the legal basis.
Wei said the act should be heeded, as it was introduced after the Environmental Impact Assessment Act (環境影響評估法), but there are still uncertainties and insufficient data in the act.
Wei said that the EPA would ask the Tourism Bureau to consult with the ministry regarding how the project is to be zoned and that the EPA would resume the review after the matter is resolved.
The conclusions would serve as a reference for proposed developments in coastal areas, he said.
Prior to the meeting, scores of environmental campaigners and Aborigines from Taitung protested in front of the EPA building, urging the agency to halt the review process.
Citizen of the Earth office director Tsai Chung-yueh (蔡中岳) said that the project was passed in 2002, but project owner Tung Ho Development Co delayed construction.
“As such, the geological properties described in the original EIA report can no longer reflect the situation today,” he said.
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