Taipei City Councilor Chin Huei-chu (秦慧珠) on Tuesday challenged the city government’s social housing program, describing it as overly ambitious as most young people are living with their parents or expect to inherit their home.
Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) has promised to build 50,000 social housing units over eight years, of which 30,000 are to be built in the next four years, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) councilor told a city council meeting.
However, an estimated 85 percent of the city’s young residents live with their parents or expect to inherit the family home, she said.
“Young people today are fortunate in that the older generation has worked hard for their future and bought houses for them,” she said, adding that young people would not need social housing at the scale that Ko has envisioned.
Most of the public housing units are occupied by non-Taipei residents who work in the capital, she said.
However, New Taipei City, Taoyuan and other cities are also ramping up their social housing programs, which could affect demand in Taipei, she added.
“Ko is drawing a pie in the sky that he cannot deliver and he is claiming credit for former mayor Hau Lung-bin’s (郝龍斌) achievements in social housing,” she said, urging the city government to review its housing plans.
However, Taipei Department of Urban Development Commissioner Lin Jou-min (林洲民) said the city remains committed to Ko’s housing pledge.
Taipei’s public-to-private housing ratio is 0.68 percent, or 400 times smaller than that of the Netherlands, he added.
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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