The Taipei City Government yesterday announced the start of an urban renewal project that would see the reconstruction of two traditional markets and the construction of a new community with public housing.
Dongmen Market (東門市場) and Nanmen Market (南門市場) have significant historical and cultural value, but as the buildings have deteriorated, Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) has instructed that they be rebuilt, Taipei Deputy Mayor Charles Lin (林欽榮) said.
The plan has met difficulties over the past three years, as temporary sites could not be found near the original sites.
The city government on Dec. 11 last year proposed a plan to Premier William Lai (賴清德), who approved it renting a base in Huaguang (華光) special zone to serve as a temporary site for the vendors, Lin said.
The city plans to rent it from the National Property Administration for NT$40 million (US$1.35 million) per year for about four or five years, he said, adding that the base covers 0.89 hectares, enough to house the vendors from Dongmen and Nanmen markets.
“The city government promises that the relocation of the two markets, from moving out of the buildings to returning to the new buildings, will not exceed three years,” Lin said.
The construction of Nanmen Market’s temporary site is to begin on Aug. 1 and vendors are expected to move in November next year and move into the new market building before November 2022, he said.
The relocation of Dongmen Market might begin next year, Lin added.
In addition, 800 public housing units would be built at the fourth and fifth bases in the Huaguang special zone, while 100 additional units would be built in the new Dongmen Market building, including daycare services for senior residents and children, as well as a youth innovation entrepreneurship base, Lin 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:
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