The Taipei City Government yesterday unveiled 272 units of the Xinglong Public Housing Buildings on Muzha Road in Wenshan District (文山), with Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) saying their quality rivals that of “luxury homes.”
Ko said that upholding “residential justice” is by far the most important policy introduced by his administration, reiterating the city government’s aim to complete 20,000 public housing units in four years and 50,000 in eight years.
Ko lauded the quality of the Ruentex Financial Group construction, saying that upon arriving at the gates, “I thought it was some kind of luxury housing.”
He said that under a collaborative project between the Ministry of Science and Technology and the city government, 24 units are equipped with power-saving “smart power grids,” which include solar panels and power-storage systems, and residents living in these units would be required to sign an agreement to assist the agency with its research.
The two buildings are a product of urban renewal work that began during the term of former Taipei mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌).
A feature of the units that set them apart from “joint development buildings” integrated with MRT stations is that the rent is lower, from NT$6,900 to NT$16,100 per month, depending on a unit’s size.
In contrast, joint development units at the MRT’s Xiaobitan, Gangqian, Taipei Bridge and Longshan Temple stations range from NT$12,700 to NT$29,800, often drawing criticism that they are luxury housing.
The Taipei Department of Urban Development said that applications for the Xinglong units are to open on Thursday next week to Taipei residents whose annual income is in the lower 40th percentile.
The department said tenants would be determined by a draw, with extra lots cast for residents aged 20 to 45.
Also eligible for preferential rates are families formerly living in the Ankang affordable housing units that were relocated during the construction, it said.
Former Ankang residents will be given priority to apply for 90 units, the department said.
People who are chosen would be able to move in as early as Dec. 1, it said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater