Long-time environmentalist and attorney Thomas Chan (詹順貴) yesterday lashed out at the Taipei City Government’s housing policy, which he said panders to construction companies and would lead to even steeper property prices.
The city government at the beginning of this month proposed a draft bylaw that would reduce property taxes paid by construction firms from 3.6 percent to 2 percent for each house they sell.
Chan said that property prices recently began showing signs of dropping, which could benefit ordinary buyers, but the mayor has chosen to side with construction companies by introducing the policy.
In doing so, Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) has reneged on a pledge he made during his election campaign last year to uphold “residential justice,” he said.
The proposed tax cut would allow construction companies to stockpile properties with lower costs, which eases their financial burden and reduces the need to sell houses at discounted prices, which would prevent real-estate prices from falling and make it more difficult for young people who want to buy a house, Chan said.
Ko’s siding with construction companies is evident in a construction project on Dangeng Mountain in the city’s Beitou District (北投), he said.
“Ko’s administration should have revoked the construction permits issued by his predecessor, the Chinese Nationalist Party’s [KMT] Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌), over the potential danger associated with the project, or asked prosecutors to investigate the case, but the city government is allegedly contemplating allowing a construction company to resume work there,” he said.
According to the Construction Management Office, the slopes on which the construction is located has an average incline of 32o, making the construction illegal under the Regulations Governing Management of Construction on Slopes (山坡地建築管理辦法).
He called on people to boycott the real-estate market and refrain from purchasing houses in the next five to 10 years, as a measure to drive down property prices to a reasonable range.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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