Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) New Taipei City mayoral candidate Hou You-yi (侯友宜) yesterday called on the Taipei Department of Urban Development to deliver a more satisfactory explanation than “it committed an administrative oversight,” after it on Tuesday said that Chinese Culture University had breached the city’s zoning regulations by renting out rooms in a student dormitory through a firm controlled by Hou’s family.
“I think even Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) is not aware of the exact legal intricacies,” Hou said.
The Da Chiun Building (大群樓), which is being used as a dormitory for the university, has contravened the Taipei City Self-Government Ordinance for Land Use Zoning Control (台北市土地使用分區自治條例), the department said on Tuesday.
Photo: Chiu Shu-yu, Taipei Times
The building is categorized as a Type 2 residential property and is not allowed for use as a boarding house or rental, according to the ordinance.
The university and the company have two months to comply with the act, the department said.
Lawyers representing Youyu Co, the intermediary overseeing the renting of the building for the university, began talks with the university on Tuesday, Hou said.
The university has, so far, allocated 200 students to the dormitory by drawing lots, and the company would seek to work out a deal that would protect the students’ interests and accommodation rights, Hou said.
Hou said he was unsure why it had been legal for Youyu to rent the rooms to students directly, and yet it was illegal for the university to do the same.
He stands by his previous comment that should the city government deem the use of the building inappropriate, he would terminate the contract, Hou said, adding: “I have never committed actions that would break the law.”
Hou’s comments about abiding by city regulations have left student rights hanging in the wind, the university’s Student Dormitory Autonomy Committee said in a statement.
The university should ascertain whether students already allocated to Da Chiun Building would be allowed to stay there next semester, should the contract be terminated, the committee said.
Arrangements for housing the 200 students that are staying in Da Chiun would be made if necessary, it said.
The termination of the contract would mean that fewer beds would be available for new students every year, forcing them to find more expensive lodgings off-campus, which constitutes a severe infringement on students’ rights, the committee said.
“We only want a quiet place to live and study; we do not want to be embroiled in politics,” the committee said.
White-label cellphones manufactured in a Chinese factory are believed to contain Trojan software that enables fraudsters to set up mobile game accounts using the owners’ phone numbers, police said on Saturday, with nearly 100 older people affected so far. After receiving a number of complaints from local branches over the past few months, the National Police Agency launched an investigation into the mobile game points-for-cash scam. The fraudsters would pose as women online to persuade people to buy game point cards at supermarkets and load the points into accounts created with the cellphone users’ phone numbers before requesting cash refunds from the
‘UNAFRAID’: Most Taiwanese do not seem to be aware of the danger of war and might be unprepared, a KMT legislator said of the poll by an affiliated foundation Nearly 60 percent of Taiwanese believe that a war between Taiwan and China is “unlikely” or “impossible,” a survey released yesterday by the National Policy Foundation showed. The survey asked participants if they thought there was a possibility of war between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait based on recent developments, said the foundation, which is affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). While 42.5 percent of respondents thought it was “unlikely” and 17.1 percent believed it was “impossible,” 5.1 percent said it was “very likely” and 17.2 percent said it was “fairly possible,” the survey showed. Another 18.2 percent gave
The Taipei District Court yesterday ordered three more suspects in a feces attack on a Taipei restaurant to be held incommunicado over concerns that they might tamper with evidence, flee or renew their alleged attacks. The three suspects — two brothers surnamed Lee (李) and another man identified as Chiang (江) — were arrested on charges of vandalism, public insult, extortion and injury after the court held a detention hearing earlier in the day, court spokesperson Huang Pei-chen (黃珮禎) said. The court in a statement said that the three men said they had no rancor against anyone in the restaurant and that
DISCUSSION: The KMT chairman said that Retrocession Day is an important ROC holiday and its celebration had nothing to do with a struggle within the party The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) hopes to highlight the “important connection” between the Republic of China (ROC) and Taiwan with its celebration of Retrocession Day on Sunday, KMT Chairman Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) said yesterday. In response to media queries in Taichung, Chiang said that Retrocession Day is an important ROC holiday, and that its celebration had nothing to do with a struggle within the KMT over its party line. The KMT values ROC holidays, such as Double Ten National Day and Retrocession Day, he said, adding that since the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) came to power, observation of the holidays has “weakened.” The
RSS