Miramar Resort Hotel Co has demanded NT$1.2 billion (US$39.08 million) from the Taitung County Government in compensation for repeated delays in the construction of a resort project.
The company has filed a request for arbitration after exhausting administrative and legal means to keep the project alive, Miramar Resort Hotel deputy manager Lin Hung-che (林弘哲) said.
Taitung County Deputy Commissioner Chen Chin-hu (陳金虎) yesterday confirmed that the county government has received a court notice for arbitration and is putting together “the strongest team possible” for the legal fight to minimize financial effects on the county.
The project started in 2004, when the county government signed an agreement with the company to build a resort at Shanyuan Bay (杉原灣) in Beinan Township (卑南).
The agreement allowed Miramar to build and operate the resort for 50 years before turning it over to the county.
Construction on 0.95 hectares began in October 2005, but the company in April 2006 expanded the project to cover 6 hectares of beach area.
Environmental groups that year called on the county to conduct a new environmental impact assessment (EIA) to take the expansion into consideration.
The county put together a committee to conduct an EIA. After five meetings, the committee in 2007 approved the expansion.
The main structure was completed in March 2007 on land that was approved for use under the initial agreement.
The groups in June that year sued the county and the company on suspicion of collusion, theft and illegal dumping.
The groups filed another lawsuit two months later, demanding that the project be halted.
The Environmental Protection Administration asked the county government to instruct Miramar to halt construction.
In 2008, the county conditionally approved an EIA, which prompted environmentalists to file new lawsuits against the company saying that the construction license and EIA were invalid.
The High Administrative Court in 2010 ruled that the license was invalid and ordered the county to halt the development.
The Supreme Administrative Court in January 2012 ruled that there were irregularities in the county’s 2008 EIA approval, as some committee members were county officials.
Then-minister of the interior Lee Hong-yuan (李鴻源) in October 2012 said that the resort should be torn down before another EIA could be carried out, because the construction was illegal.
In October 2014, the Kaohsiung High Administrative Court ruled that the seventh EIA on the expansion was invalid. The county appealed the ruling, but lost the appeal on March 31, 2016.
In November last year, Taitung County Commissioner Justin Huang (黃健庭) told the Taitung County Council that Miramar intended to file for arbitration.
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
Credit departments of farmers’ and fishers’ associations blocked a total of more than NT$180 million (US$6.01 million) from being lost to scams last year, National Police Agency (NPA) data showed. The Agricultural Finance Agency (AFA) said last week that staff of farmers’ and fishers’ associations’ credit departments are required to implement fraud prevention measures when they serve clients at the counter. They would ask clients about personal financial management activities whenever they suspect there might be a fraud situation, and would immediately report the incident to local authorities, which would send police officers to the site to help, it said. NPA data showed
ENERGY RESILIENCE: Although Alaska is open for investments, Taiwan is sourcing its gas from the Middle East, and the sea routes carry risks, Ho Cheng-hui said US government officials’ high-profile reception of a Taiwanese representative at the Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference indicated the emergence of an Indo-Pacific energy resilience alliance, an academic said. Presidential Office Secretary-General Pan Men-an (潘孟安) attended the conference in Alaska on Thursday last week at the invitation of the US government. Pan visited oil and gas facilities with senior US officials, including US Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy and US Senator Daniel Sullivan. Pan attending the conference on behalf of President William Lai (賴清德) shows a significant elevation in diplomatic representation,
The Taipei City Reserve Command yesterday initiated its first-ever 14-day recall of some of the city’s civilian service reservists, who are to undergo additional training on top of refresher courses. The command said that it rented sites in Neihu District (內湖), including the Taipei Tennis Center, for the duration of the camp to optimize tactical positioning and accommodate the size of the battalion of reservists. A battalion is made up of four companies of more than 200 reservists each, it said. Aside from shooting drills at a range in New Taipei City’s Linkou District (林口), the remainder of the training would be at
RSS