Environmentalists yesterday decried a hotel project planned for Taitung’s Sansiantai Beach (三仙台) ahead of an environmental impact assessment (EIA) today, saying that the project would significantly affect the area’s coral reef ecology, and called for a halt to the review before changes to environmental and Aboriginal laws are announced.
The Mandifu Recreation development project — a 200-room hotel complex on a 10.41-hectare plot of land — passed its first EIA in 2002, but construction has not begun.
The developer last year submitted a project modification application to the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) for approval of a road built by the East Coast National Scenic Area Administration.
An EIA review committee in November last year said that the application was meaningless, as the road was already finished.
However, the developer resubmitted the application, and another EIA review is scheduled for today.
Environmental protection group Citizen of the Earth researcher Huang Fei-Yueh (黃斐悅) said the application was procedurally flawed, as the developer submitted the application only after the construction was completed.
Huang said the administration deliberately circumvented the EIA by shortening the length of the road from 1,057m to 940m, as every development that involves a road of more than 1km in natural reserve areas requires an environmental review.
Citizen of the Earth office director Tsai Chung-yueh (蔡中岳) said environmental laws do not specify a limitation period for projects that have passed environmental reviews, but have not started construction, while there is no means to invalidate those projects despite possible changes to the environment or environmental laws.
Tsai said that proposed developments pending EPA approval would add 3,517 hotels to 2,799 existing facilities, but the Tourism Bureau estimated that by 2023 there would be a surplus in Taitung and Hualien counties of 9,705 guestrooms.
The Mandifu project would just contribute to the overcapacity of the hotel industry, Tsai said.
Taiwan Environmental Information Association manager Lin Yu-chu (林育朱) said the Sansiantai area is one of the few habitats of a newly discovered coral species, Pseudosiderastrea formosa, while the local coral colony is found in only about 50 sites, which are distributed in shallow water and therefore sensitive to developments on land.
Aboriginal rights advocate Mayaw Biho said that the development ignored Aborigines’ rights by bulldozing in preparation for construction without the consent of local Aboriginal communities, which is illegal according to environmental regulations.
Biho called on the EIA review committee to halt the project review, as well as reviews of other developments on the east coast, before regulations of the Coastal Zone Management Act (海岸管理法) and the Indigenous Peoples Basic Law (原住民族基本法) are announced, while the EPA should revise the environmental review system and set up an invalidation mechanism.
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