Residents of New Taipei City’s (新北市) Linkou District (林口) yesterday protested a plan to turn 16 hectares of woodland and parks into an athletes’ village for the 2017 Universiade and clashed verbally with officials at a presentation for the project.
“Call off the meeting,” “Show some respect for Linkou residents,” residents shouted while holding up a giant banner that read: “No to deforestation in Linkou by Taipei City,” interrupting the meeting of Taipei and New Taipei City officials to present the athletes’ village project at Linkou Senior High School yesterday afternoon.
To accommodate the needs of athletes taking part in the Universiade, which will be hosted by the Taipei City Government, an athletes’ village in Linkou is being planned and the dormitories for athletes will later be converted into 3,000 housing units for sale or rent.
Photo: Lai Hsiao-tung, Taipei Times
The plan met with strong opposition from residents when it was made public last year.
“You know why we’re so upset? Because you never told us about it before you selected the site,” Linkou resident Chu Yu-lin (朱玉麟) shouted at officials sitting in the front.
“A decision that concerns the public should not be made by just a few,” Chu added.
Some residents also challenged the legitimacy of the meeting.
“The Taipei City Government notified the New Taipei City Government about the meeting last week and it was even later when we residents received notice. Some people in some neighborhoods learned about it on Thursday and I never even got the news,” said Hsu Chu-feng (許主峰), a teacher at Linkou Community College.
“I suspect this is a trick that the government played so that those affected wouldn’t be able to make it to the meeting to express their opposition,” Hsu said.
As officials insisted on continuing the meeting, most opponents to the plan decided to withdraw from the meeting, leaving about two-thirds of the seats empty.
“It’s ridiculous that we have to sacrifice 16 hectares of woodland with rich biodiversity and parks to cater to the needs of a sports event that only lasts two weeks,” Action Alliance for Saving Woodlands in Linkou convener Wang Chen-nai (王貞乃) said.
“It took more than 40 years for threes to grow on those lands, and five of the trees have been placed on the protected trees list because of their age by the [New Taipei City] Department of Agriculture. We are strongly opposed to the destruction of such a rare area in the Taipei metropolitan region.”
Chu said he was worried that the athletes’ village would destroy the quality of life in Linkou.
“Although most newly completed housing complexes are still empty, traffic problems have already appeared. The problem would only get worse because the government plans to turn the athletes’ dormitories into about 3,000 housing units for sale or for rent. Don’t forget that in Gueishan Township (龜山), Taoyuan County, on the other side of the Linkou Plateau, the government is also planning to build more social housing complexes,” Chu said.
“In addition, we’re already experiencing a water shortage, I don’t know how they’re going to supply enough water for tens of thousands of more people,” Chu added.
In a press release, the New Taipei City Department of Urban and Rural Development said the Taipei City Government has already agreed to preserve the Linkou Sports Park, adding that the New Taipei City Government would continue to negotiate with Taipei on the project’s impacts on traffic and ecology.
AGING: While Japan has 22 submarines, Taiwan only operates four, two of which were commissioned by the US in 1945 and 1946, and transferred to Taiwan in 1973 Taiwan would need at least 12 submarines to reach modern fleet capabilities, CSBC Corp, Taiwan chairman Chen Cheng-hung (陳政宏) said in an interview broadcast on Friday, citing a US assessment. CSBC is testing the nation’s first indigenous defense submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, Narwhal), which is scheduled to be delivered to the navy next month or in July. The Hai Kun has completed torpedo-firing tests and is scheduled to undergo overnight sea trials, Chen said on an SET TV military affairs program. Taiwan would require at least 12 submarines to establish a modern submarine force after assessing the nation’s operational environment and defense
A white king snake that frightened passengers and caused a stir on a Taipei MRT train on Friday evening has been claimed by its owner, who would be fined, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said yesterday. A person on Threads posted that he thought he was lucky to find an empty row of seats on Friday after boarding a train on the Bannan (Blue) Line, only to spot a white snake with black stripes after sitting down. Startled, he jumped up, he wrote, describing the encounter as “terrifying.” “Taipei’s rat control plan: Release snakes on the metro,” one person wrote in reply, referring
The coast guard today said that it had disrupted "illegal" operations by a Chinese research ship in waters close to the nation and driven it away, part of what Taipei sees a provocative pattern of China's stepped up maritime activities. The coast guard said that it on Thursday last week detected the Chinese ship Tongji (同濟號), which was commissioned only last year, 29 nautical miles (54km) southeast of the southern tip of Taiwan, although just outside restricted waters. The ship was observed lowering ropes into the water, suspected to be the deployment of scientific instruments for "illegal" survey operations, and the coast
An inauguration ceremony was held yesterday for the Danjiang Bridge, the world’s longest single-mast asymmetric cable-stayed bridge, ahead of its official opening to traffic on Tuesday, marking a major milestone after nearly three decades of planning and construction. At the ceremony in New Taipei City attended by President William Lai (賴清德), Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰), Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) and New Taipei City Mayor Hou Yu-ih (侯友宜), the bridge was hailed as both an engineering landmark and a long-awaited regional transport link connecting Tamsui (淡水) and Bali (八里)
RSS