Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) announced that Taipei would enter a “major urban renewal era” as he visited damaged buildings at the weekend.
Dozens of residents living in Zhongzheng District’s (中正) dilapidated Nanjichang (南機場) housing complex were ordered to evacuate their homes as signs of serious damage to part of the buildings’ structure were discovered after an earthquake shook the whole nation on Wednesday last week.
The housing complex was built in three phases in the early 1960s for the resettlement of thousands of residents who were forced to move due to the construction of an embankment or because they were living in illegal buildings in the area, but the living environment has deteriorated due to poor management over the years and the Taipei City Government listed it as a key urban renewal area in 2000.
Photo: Hsu Yi-ping, Taipei Times
After visiting the housing complex on Saturday, Chiang said that many columns of the building were seriously damaged on Wednesday last week, so the city government worked with civil engineers, structural engineers and geotechnical engineers and installed four H-beams to reinforce it.
Although there are still cracks in the walls and concrete scaling, the engineers on Saturday reassessed the building and deemed there to be no immediate danger of collapse, so the evacuated residents could return to their homes, he said.
“I also announced on site that Taiwan will enter a ‘major urban renewal era,’” Chiang said.
The average age of buildings in Taiwan is nearly 40 years, and 72 percent are aged 30 years or older, he said, adding that earthquakes come with no warning, so the city government would vigorously promote urban renewal.
Chiang said the city government previously launched eight measures in an effort to speed up urban renewal projects, and that it would push for more comprehensive urban renewal policies to prevent disasters.
The mayor’s announcement led to many people leaving supportive comments on his Facebook page, but some also mentioned problems and suggestions, including that the building bulk reward for urban renewal must be increased and that government intervention is needed to solve the problem of a few property owners who refuse to move.
Urban renewal should start in areas with a risk of soil liquefaction and the review process must be accelerated, they said.
Asked to comment on the Taipei mayor’s “major urban renewal era” announcement, Premier Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) yesterday said that the Cabinet would continue to work with local governments and the civic sector to reconstruct dangerous old buildings so that people would be safe in their homes.
The urban renewal of old and unsafe buildings is especially important as earthquakes occur frequently in Taiwan, Chen said, adding that three laws regarding urban renewal were passed between 2017 and 2019, and more than 4,000 projects were approved after the laws had been enacted.
Two US House of Representatives committees yesterday condemned China’s attempt to orchestrate a crash involving Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim’s (蕭美琴) car when she visited the Czech Republic last year as vice president-elect. Czech local media in March last year reported that a Chinese diplomat had run a red light while following Hsiao’s car from the airport, and Czech intelligence last week told local media that Chinese diplomats and agents had also planned to stage a demonstrative car collision. Hsiao on Saturday shared a Reuters news report on the incident through her account on social media platform X and wrote: “I
STILL ON THE TABLE: The government is not precluding advanced nuclear power generation if it is proven safer and the nuclear waste issue is solved, the premier said Taiwan is willing to be in step with the world by considering new methods of nuclear energy generation and to discuss alternative approaches to provide more stable power generation and help support industries, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. The government would continue to develop diverse and green energy solutions, which include considering advances in nuclear energy generation, he added. Cho’s remarks echoed President William Lai’s (賴清德) comments in an interview last month, saying the government is not precluding “advanced and newer nuclear power generation” if it is proven to be safer and the issue of nuclear waste is resolved. Lai’s comment had
‘BUILDING PARTNERSHIPS’: The US military’s aim is to continue to make any potential Chinese invasion more difficult than it already is, US General Ronald Clark said The likelihood of China invading Taiwan without contest is “very, very small” because the Taiwan Strait is under constant surveillance by multiple countries, a US general has said. General Ronald Clark, commanding officer of US Army Pacific (USARPAC), the US Army’s largest service component command, made the remarks during a dialogue hosted on Friday by Washington-based think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Asked by the event host what the Chinese military has learned from its US counterpart over the years, Clark said that the first lesson is that the skill and will of US service members are “unmatched.” The second
STANDING TOGETHER: Amid China’s increasingly aggressive activities, nations must join forces in detecting and dealing with incursions, a Taiwanese official said Two senior Philippine officials and one former official yesterday attended the Taiwan International Ocean Forum in Taipei, the first high-level visit since the Philippines in April lifted a ban on such travel to Taiwan. The Ocean Affairs Council hosted the two-day event at the National Taiwan University Hospital International Convention Center. Philippine Navy spokesman Rear Admiral Roy Vincent Trinidad, Coast Guard spokesman Grand Commodore Jay Tarriela and former Philippine Presidential Communications Office assistant secretary Michel del Rosario participated in the forum. More than 100 officials, experts and entrepreneurs from 15 nations participated in the forum, which included discussions on countering China’s hybrid warfare
RSS