The Taipei City Government yesterday claimed that it cannot be held legally accountable for a public housing complex built with sea sand because the 16-year-old building has already passed the warranty period of 10 years.
The city, however, offered each family in the building a NT$100,000 subsidy to help pay for a maintenance and reinforcement project.
While most concrete buildings are constructed using river sand, those built with poorly processed sea sand may pose a potential danger since chlorine ions contained in the sand can gradually eat into the concrete and steel bars of the building's structure.
A 12-page written report made available by the city's Department of Public Housing (國宅處) yesterday says that the 266-family Hsiu-te public building complex (修德國宅) in Nankang District had been built with sea sand. Laws did not put limits on chlorine ion levels in building materials until July 1994.
The Hisu-te complex was completed in 1984 and residents began moving in the following year.
Evaluation reports conducted by the Taipei Architects' Association (
The Civil Engineers' Associations also recommended that buildings one through five of the Hsiu-te building complex receive reinforcement work, while buildings six through nine be demolished and reconstructed.
The report said that the city is not legally accountable because the Civil Code stipulates that the builder is liable for any major repairs required within 10 years of completing a structure.
The city is not bound by the construction contract either because the warranty periods for repairs and damage caused by water leaks are one year and two years, respectively.
The warranty periods can be extended to five years and 10 years respectively if the builder fails to notify the residents about the construction flaws.
Apparently dissatisfied with the city's report, members of the city council's public works committee returned it to the public housing department and requested it deliver a more comprehensive report on May 21 to address the city's 36 other buildings that were constructed using sea sand.
New Party City Councilor Lee Ching-yuan (
"What I can say about the report is that it's a perfect example of the rascal city government playing with the law at the expense of city residents," he said. "What it says is take the NT$100,000 and bugger off."
Lee added that the city is literally doing nothing for the building residents since they are already eligible for the NT$100,000 subsidy according to a 1997 subsidy bylaw of Taipei City's structures built with sea sand.
The decree also specifies that residents are eligible for a NT$200,000 subsidy if they wish to demolish and reconstruct the building.
AGING: As of last month, people aged 65 or older accounted for 20.06 percent of the total population and the number of couples who got married fell by 18,685 from 2024 Taiwan has surpassed South Korea as the country least willing to have children, with an annual crude birthrate of 4.62 per 1,000 people, Ministry of the Interior data showed yesterday. The nation was previously ranked the second-lowest country in terms of total fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman has in her lifetime. However, South Korea’s fertility rate began to recover from 2023, with total fertility rate rising from 0.72 and estimated to reach 0.82 to 0.85 by last year, and the crude birthrate projected at 6.7 per 1,000 people. Japan’s crude birthrate was projected to fall below six,
Conflict with Taiwan could leave China with “massive economic disruption, catastrophic military losses, significant social unrest, and devastating sanctions,” a US think tank said in a report released on Monday. The German Marshall Fund released a report titled If China Attacks Taiwan: The Consequences for China of “Minor Conflict” and “Major War” Scenarios. The report details the “massive” economic, military, social and international costs to China in the event of a minor conflict or major war with Taiwan, estimating that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could sustain losses of more than half of its active-duty ground forces, including 100,000 troops. Understanding Chinese
US President Donald Trump in an interview with the New York Times published on Thursday said that “it’s up to” Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be “very unhappy” with a change in the “status quo.” “He [Xi] considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing, but I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that. I hope he doesn’t do that,” Trump said. Trump made the comments in the context
SELF-DEFENSE: Tokyo has accelerated its spending goal and its defense minister said the nation needs to discuss whether it should develop nuclear-powered submarines China is ramping up objections to what it sees as Japan’s desire to acquire nuclear weapons, despite Tokyo’s longstanding renunciation of such arms, deepening another fissure in the two neighbors’ increasingly tense ties. In what appears to be a concerted effort, China’s foreign and defense ministries issued statements on Thursday condemning alleged remilitarism efforts by Tokyo. The remarks came as two of the country’s top think tanks jointly issued a 29-page report framing actions by “right-wing forces” in Japan as posing a “serious threat” to world peace. While that report did not define “right-wing forces,” the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs was
RSS