Residents of Hsinchu County’s Jhubei Township (竹北) gathered in front of the Construction and Planning Agency headquarters in Taipei to protest the planned Taiwan Knowledge-Based Economy Park (臺灣知識經濟旗艦園區) during a committee review on Friday, saying the project would deprive farmers of their land and encourage property speculation.
The economy park was approved by the Ministry of the Interior in 2009 and would cover an area of about 447 hectares — nearly 400 hectares of which are to be acquired through expropriation.
Puyu Self-help Association director Chiu Hung-chun (邱鴻鈞) said that only 18 percent of the park was designated for industrial use, while 70 percent was allocated for residential and business purposes.
Ninety percent of the properties set to be expropriated were specially designated agricultural zones, which grew premium rice, Chiu said.
The association’s deputy director Chen Yi-hsu (陳義旭) said that specially designated agricultural zones were exempt from expropriation according to the Land Expropriation Act (土地徵收條例), but the National Development Council circumvented the act by designating the project a major national development — the project was recognized as such by the ministry in 2004 and reaffirmed by the Executive Yuan in May this year.
“No one knows what the criteria for major national development are. It is up to the members of the review committee, which could make land seizure a tool for political patronage and profiteering,” he said.
Meanwhile, another group of Jhubei residents and the project’s supporters also gathered in front of the agency’s building, saying that local voices must be heard and local development must be assured.
The committee ordered the project’s developer to conduct an opinion poll and propose solutions by the end of next month.
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