The Executive Yuan on Thursday approved a draft amendment to the Urban Renewal Act (都市更新條例) that would streamline procedures authorizing local governments to demolish dangerous buildings, and provide higher floor area ratio incentives to encourage the reconstruction of old buildings and accelerate urban renewal.
After the catastrophic 921 earthquake of 1999, the government amended relevant regulations to raise building design standards to improve their resistance to earthquakes, the Ministry of the Interior said.
Government data showed that before the amended regulations took effect in December 1999, there were more than 36,200 buildings at least six floors high that did not have adequate earthquake resistance.
This large number of dangerous buildings makes it difficult to coordinate action among owners and push building renovation projects forward, the ministry said.
To encourage the reconstruction of such buildings, the ministry drafted an amendment to the Urban Renewal Act that would increase floor area ratios — the ratio of a building’s total floor area to the size of the plot of land on which it is built — to up to 130 percent of their original ratios, for developers of such renewal projects, the ministry said.
The proposal is to be submitted to the Legislative Yuan for review, it added.
Previous amendments to the Urban Renewal Act that took effect on Jan. 30 last year stipulate that homeowners who participate in urban renewal projects and do not sell their new homes within a certain time frame would be entitled to a 50 percent cut in the housing tax, the ministry said.
Renewal projects would also be granted an increase of up to 50 percent from the original floor space as an incentive for homeowners, it said.
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