The Taipei Department of Urban Development last week informed prospective tenants of the Minglun Social Housing project that they could move into their new homes in March. The recently built project is an 11-story complex with two basement floors on an 8,639m2 plot in Taipei’s Datong District (大同).
However, the project’s high rents — the monthly rent for a three-bedroom apartment is up to NT$40,500 — have stirred debate about housing justice. The complex is built on the site of the former Minglun Elementary School, which was shuttered in 2013 after the school merged with nearby Dalung Elementary School. The project is the first of its kind to be designed, constructed and completed under the administration of Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), and was touted by the city government as a step toward realizing housing justice and offering housing units that Taipei residents can afford.
The monthly rent for the most expensive three-bedroom units with an extra-large balcony has certainly raised eyebrows. However, the rent of NT$36,000 for a three-bedroom apartment designated for low-income households has also triggered discussion whether those units are affordable for the residents the city government targeted and whether the project is truly in the spirit of promoting housing justice. Even with rent subsidies, low-income households still cannot afford such apartments.
Ko’s remarks about the high rents have only sparked further controversy, as his reactions to criticism clearly discriminate against poor residents. For instance, he said that the city did not want social housing to accommodate just poor people. On another occasion, he said that low-income households should not aim to live in three-bedroom apartments.
Social housing is not only to provide homes to people at affordable rents, it also serves as a social safety net. Therefore, social housing should focus first on low-income people and gradually be opened to those with higher incomes when sufficient housing is built. In most social housing programs around the world, rents are calculated based on household income, rather than on the rental market.
The project’s rents were set based on the cost of construction, 55 years of management and operational costs, replacement costs, housing and land value taxes, and other fees, Taipei city councilors have said. Clearly, the city develops social housing with returns on investment in mind — whether social housing will be “self-liquidating,” as people call it here — and therefore it stresses fiscal discipline and sets the rents based on market mechanisms.
This touches upon some important points: First, the city seems intent on running the project like a business, as it places more attention on profits, losses and other financial metrics than on social value. Second, consumer protection regulations stipulate that property owners, not tenants, should pay housing and land value taxes, but in the case of Minglun, the city has included them in the total cost and wants all tenants to share the burden. Third, high rents coupled with the scarcity of social housing is likely to exclude low-income households from the city’s housing justice considerations.
Taiwan lags behind other advanced nations in building housing for poor people, and such projects are much fewer than regular housing developments. As of June last year, social housing accounted for just 0.18 percent of the nation’s total housing, statistics compiled by the Organization of Urban Re-s showed.
Building social housing is crucial to achieving housing justice, but more importantly, policymakers at local and central government level must understand social housing as part of the social safety net and calculate rents based on the income of the targeted group of residents.
To keep social housing development sustainable, real-estate-related tax reforms and the reallocation of public resources are the necessary next steps.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has long been expansionist and contemptuous of international law. Under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), the CCP regime has become more despotic, coercive and punitive. As part of its strategy to annex Taiwan, Beijing has sought to erase the island democracy’s international identity by bribing countries to sever diplomatic ties with Taipei. One by one, China has peeled away Taiwan’s remaining diplomatic partners, leaving just 12 countries (mostly small developing states) and the Vatican recognizing Taiwan as a sovereign nation. Taiwan’s formal international space has shrunk dramatically. Yet even as Beijing has scored diplomatic successes, its overreach
In her article in Foreign Affairs, “A Perfect Storm for Taiwan in 2026?,” Yun Sun (孫韻), director of the China program at the Stimson Center in Washington, said that the US has grown indifferent to Taiwan, contending that, since it has long been the fear of US intervention — and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) inability to prevail against US forces — that has deterred China from using force against Taiwan, this perceived indifference from the US could lead China to conclude that a window of opportunity for a Taiwan invasion has opened this year. Most notably, she observes that
For Taiwan, the ongoing US and Israeli strikes on Iranian targets are a warning signal: When a major power stretches the boundaries of self-defense, smaller states feel the tremors first. Taiwan’s security rests on two pillars: US deterrence and the credibility of international law. The first deters coercion from China. The second legitimizes Taiwan’s place in the international community. One is material. The other is moral. Both are indispensable. Under the UN Charter, force is lawful only in response to an armed attack or with UN Security Council authorization. Even pre-emptive self-defense — long debated — requires a demonstrably imminent
Since being re-elected, US President Donald Trump has consistently taken concrete action to counter China and to safeguard the interests of the US and other democratic nations. The attacks on Iran, the earlier capture of deposed of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and efforts to remove Chinese influence from the Panama Canal all demonstrate that, as tensions with Beijing intensify, Washington has adopted a hardline stance aimed at weakening its power. Iran and Venezuela are important allies and major oil suppliers of China, and the US has effectively decapitated both. The US has continuously strengthened its military presence in the Philippines. Japanese Prime
RSS