Environmental activists and residents facing land seizures yesterday criticized a Construction and Planning Agency project, saying it is behind many unnecessary developments and controversial seizures of property.
The agency’s Living Area Transportation Program is a four-year, NT$60 billion (US$1.86 billion) program scheduled to run from last year through 2018, which is aimed at constructing urban road facilities across the nation, but protesters described the program as a means to justify land expropriations and facilitate speculation.
Citizen of the Earth named six controversial projects funded by the program — including an expansion of Hualien County’s No. 193 County Road; an extension of an interchange of Freeway No. 3 in Hsinchu; a road construction in Hsinchu’s North District (北區); a beltway in Tainan’s Sigang District (西港); a road expansion in Taoyuan’s Dayuan Township (大園) and an expressway connecting Taichung’s Dongshih (東勢) and Fengyuan (豐原) districts.
The six projects would cost a total NT$14.86 billion, a significant proportion of which is to be used to expropriate properties.
The projects would not significantly improve traffic, but would fragment farmlands, destroy landscapes and environments, and force residents out of their homes, the group said.
Group researcher Huang Ching-ting (黃靖庭) said many of the protests involving land seizures and forced relocations are related to the agency’s program, as local governments and developers are vying for funds in the name of development.
The necessity of many construction projects has been questioned, such as the proposed Dongshih-Fengyuan expressway in Taichung.
Taichung-based self-help group spokesperson Fu Tung-sen (傅東森) said the NT$910 million, 9.6km expressway, is expected to save only 10 minutes of travel time, while the expressway, designed as a “disaster prevention road,” would travel through active faults and geologically unstable areas.
The transparency of some of the road developments has also been questioned, with a Hsinchu resident surnamed Chang (張) — whose family farmlands were expropriated and residence is to be demolished — saying the Hsinchu City Government “negotiated” with them only after it finalized a road construction plan, implying any negotiations were simply a disguisef or forced seizure.
“Citizens only have the right to express their opinions in public hearings, but they cannot in any way influence the government’s decisionmaking process. In the end, we have to accept what the government decides for us,” Chang said.
The group’s Hualien and Taitung offices director Tsai Chung-yueh (蔡中岳) said the agency’s development review process excludes public participation and involves only the examination of written documents — without field inspections — and the review committee has to review more than 50 road construction projects in one sitting.
The nation’s existing road facilities are sufficient, and road construction should be considered as the last resort to ease congestion should all other means fail, Tsai said, calling on the agency to withdraw the budget for controversial developments and re-examine its development review process.
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