Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) announced on Saturday last week that the city government would push for more comprehensive urban renewal policies after inspecting a damaged housing complex.
The average age of buildings in Taiwan is nearly 40 years, and 72 percent are 30 years old or older, he said, adding that earthquakes come with no warning, so the city government would vigorously promote urban renewal.
Separately, Premier Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) on Monday said that the rebuilding of old and unsafe buildings in Taiwan is especially important due to the frequency of earthquakes.
Urban renewal in Taiwan has been a focus of politicians and a subject of controversy for more than a decade. In 2011, then-Democratic Progressive Party chairwoman and presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) promised to tackle the issue on a large scale if elected.
In 2012, then-Taipei mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) pushed through the reconstruction of an apartment complex in the city’s Shilin District (士林), despite protests from 5 percent of the site’s property owners.
Protests have delayed or prevented urban renewal projects in the past, even when the majority of residents have agreed to reconstruction. Amendments to the Urban Renewal Act (都市更新條例) passed in 2018 sought to tackle such delays by having disputes resolved by municipal urban planning committees and urban design review committees, then hearings, in that order.
One amendment raised the quorum for a project to be initiated from one-tenth of all affected property owners to half of all proprietors before a renewal plan can be delivered to local authorities for approval.
However, if at least 90 percent of proprietors agree to a project, the plan might be implemented.
Since those amendments, along with others, were passed in 2019, more than 4,000 renewal projects have been approved and completed, Chen said. However, a report published by the Taipei Times on Dec. 19, 2022, cited tax registration certificates showing that there are about 928,000 buildings in Taipei.
With fewer than 1 percent of Taipei’s buildings having been reconstructed following those amendments, and the average age of buildings in the city being 40 years old, urban renewal efforts are moving at a snail’s pace.
Local Chinese-language media in September last year cited statistics from Taipei’s Public Works Bureau as showing that up to 21 percent of the city is highly vulnerable to liquefaction.
Sinkholes have also occurred at various construction sites throughout the city over the past year, with one at a site on a street in Dazhi, Zhongshan District (中山), managed by Kee Tai Properties causing surrounding buildings to sink.
Given the instability of the soil in many parts of Taipei, and the unpredictability of earthquakes, urban renewal is a particularly urgent matter.
Since renewal projects are unlikely to be delayed by holdouts, the government should begin diverting more resources toward these. Aside from safety considerations, there is another reason for prioritizing building reconstruction: Taipei’s aging population.
As Chiang has said, Taipei’s buildings — like its people — are getting old. The time for urban renewal is now.
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
In an article published on this page on Tuesday, Kaohsiung-based journalist Julien Oeuillet wrote that “legions of people worldwide would care if a disaster occurred in South Korea or Japan, but the same people would not bat an eyelid if Taiwan disappeared.” That is quite a statement. We are constantly reading about the importance of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), hailed in Taiwan as the nation’s “silicon shield” protecting it from hostile foreign forces such as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and so crucial to the global supply chain for semiconductors that its loss would cost the global economy US$1
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
Sasha B. Chhabra’s column (“Michelle Yeoh should no longer be welcome,” March 26, page 8) lamented an Instagram post by renowned actress Michelle Yeoh (楊紫瓊) about her recent visit to “Taipei, China.” It is Chhabra’s opinion that, in response to parroting Beijing’s propaganda about the status of Taiwan, Yeoh should be banned from entering this nation and her films cut off from funding by government-backed agencies, as well as disqualified from competing in the Golden Horse Awards. She and other celebrities, he wrote, must be made to understand “that there are consequences for their actions if they become political pawns of
RSS