“I’ve always been competent in completing the big projects that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) fails to execute and leaves unfinished for years,” Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) New Taipei City mayoral candidate and former premier Yu Shyi-kun said in a recent interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper).
“I entered the New Taipei City race to keep fulfilling my lifelong mission and promise to the Taiwanese public and to this country of ours,” Yu said, before going on to list the projects completed under his premiership, including the Formosa Freeway (National Freeway No. 3), the Hsuehshan Tunnel and flood control engineering works on the Keelung River (基隆河).
Yu said that all these projects had either been delayed, or were making arduously slow and difficult progress under the former KMT administration, but after assuming the post of premier, he brought them to completion within two to three years.
Turning to his campaign platform, the DPP hopeful said he sees New Taipei City Mayor Eric Chu’s (朱立倫) housing policy as “unfair, since it is not equitable to all sectors of society.”
“My proposed social housing and government-directed urban renewal programs meet the criteria for housing justice,” he said.
“Before 1974, buildings were not required to be earthquake-resistant. New Taipei City has about 250,000 of these non-quake-proof buildings that are more than 40 years old,” Yu said. “Citing data from the National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering, former minister of the interior Lee Hong-yuan (李鴻源) has said that if a magnitude 6.3 or greater earthquake were to strike the Greater Taipei area, 4,000 buildings would collapse. Despite this, no politician has given earnest though to how to deal with this problem.”
The 66-year-old politician said that all those old buildings and homes should be given the chance to undergo renewal.
“With open-ended policies, we could enable citizens to either choose their preferred plan from the private sector, or opt for a state-led urban revitalization plan, which they can trust as it would include guaranteed protection and the lowest condition requirements,” he said.
“Under my urban revitalization plan directed by the government, there would be clear transparency and a high degree of public credibility that would facilitate overall integration,” Yu said. “Renewal projects would be planned out and coordinated over a large area, thereby improving the quality of life of local residents. Furthermore, my plan would incentivize having a higher ratio of building volume-to-floor area, better utilization of public land and the installation of public facilities.”
Yu said that if elected, he would raise NT$1 trillion (US$33.35 billion) throughout the four-year mayoral term “to fund the renewal of 90,000 buildings under the public sector plan. We can transform old residential blocks into new neighborhoods.”
Under a 300 percent building volume-to-floor space ratio for four-story apartment buildings, Yu said “citizens could trade a new house for their old one, while retaining the same amount of floor space, in addition to increased parking space and access to a public park next door.”
Turning to his social housing plan, Yu proposed having the public sector borrow NT$1 trillion from financial institutions to build public housing complexes of 50,000 units with a low rents of NT$300 per ping (3.3m2) over the four-year mayoral term.
“This would provide affordable housing for young people. I want to stress that this is a self-financing plan: It enables most people to live within an affordable price range and does not add any financial burden to the government. In the long-term, this scheme would see the government profit from the eventual increase in property value,” Yu said.
“Under my social housing initiative, the units would be exclusively rentals and would be built by the New Taipei City Government. Residents would be responsible for paying rent and building management fees, but the plan is not-for-profit, since the rent money would go toward covering construction costs, maintenance and administration management fees. Therefore, the rental rates would be much lower than market price. Any young person who applies for such housing can enjoy these benefits,” Yu said.
As for his plans to improve transportation, Yu said he is hopeful that if both he and independent Taipei mayoral candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are elected, then right-of-way issues for buses could be revamped and certain bus-only lanes in Taipei could be extended to New Taipei City so the public transport system can run more smoothly between the two areas.
About the municipality’s social welfare policy, Yu said that Chu has spent too much money on fixed-location facilities.
“Social welfare programs must be fair and equitable to all, but Chu’s public daycare centers are selected by lottery, meaning that eligibility for those daycares and public elementary schools is left to luck of the draw,” the former premier said.
“We have about 10,000 children under the age of three in New Taipei City. Chu spent lot of money to set up the public daycare centers, but they can only accommodate 2,000 to 3,000 kids,” Yu said. “To resolve this problem, I propose giving financial subsidies to parents and enhance programs for nannies.”
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