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.
In an article published in Newsweek on Monday last week, President William Lai (賴清德) challenged China to retake territories it lost to Russia in the 19th century rather than invade Taiwan. “If it is really for the sake of territorial integrity, why doesn’t China take back Russia?” Lai asked, referring to territories lost in 1858 and 1860. The territories once made up the two flanks of northern Manchuria. Once ceded to Russia, they became part of the Russian far east. Claims since then have been made that China and Russia settled the disputes in the 1990s through the 2000s and that “China
China has successfully held its Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, with 53 of 55 countries from the African Union (AU) participating. The two countries that did not participate were Eswatini and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, which have no diplomatic relations with China. Twenty-four leaders were reported to have participated. Despite African countries complaining about summit fatigue, with recent summits held with Russia, Italy, South Korea, the US and Indonesia, as well as Japan next month, they still turned up in large numbers in Beijing. China’s ability to attract most of the African leaders to a summit demonstrates that it is still being
Trips to the Kenting Peninsula in Pingtung County have dredged up a lot of public debate and furor, with many complaints about how expensive and unreasonable lodging is. Some people even call it a tourist “butchering ground.” Many local business owners stake claims to beach areas by setting up parasols and driving away people who do not rent them. The managing authority for the area — Kenting National Park — has long ignored the issue. Ultimately, this has affected the willingness of domestic travelers to go there, causing tourist numbers to plummet. In 2008, Taiwan opened the door to Chinese tourists and in
Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) on Thursday was handcuffed and escorted by police to the Taipei Detention Center, after the Taipei District Court ordered that he be detained and held incommunicado for suspected corruption during his tenure as Taipei mayor. The ruling reversed an earlier decision by the same court on Monday last week that ordered Ko’s release without bail. That decision was appealed by prosecutors on Wednesday, leading the High Court to conclude that Ko had been “actively involved” in the alleged corruption and it ordered the district court to hold a second detention hearing. Video clips
RSS