The long-awaited National Land Planning Act (國土計畫法) was cleared by the Legislative Yuan on Friday, stipulating that a national land-use zoning and planning act should be formulated in the near future and rezoning would be strictly restricted to curb the loss of farmland and natural reserves.
One of the so-called three national land acts, the act’s passage came 22 years after it was first drafted in 1993 and the act would require central and local governments to zone the nation’s land into four categories — national reserve areas, marine resource areas, agriculture development areas and urban development areas.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chiu Wen-yen (邱文彥), who proposed the act, said that the act was formulated in response to large-scale disasters, such as the 921 Earthquake in 1999 and Typhoon Morakot in 2009 to design a land-appropriate national development plan to prevent similar disasters.
“I promised to have the act passed, and I did it today. It should be a comfort to disaster victims,” Chiu said.
Once the land categorization is announced, rezoning is only possible during an overall zoning review, which is held once every five years by local governments and once every 10 years by the central government, while individual rezoning applications would be prohibited, which is aimed at preventing land expropriation and property speculation through land category alternations.
The act would replace the existing Regional Planning Act (區域計畫法) once a national zoning plan is promulgated.
The act gives the central government the authority to enforce a proposed zoning plan over local government plans.
The right of Taiwanese to take legal action is codified in the act, which would require governments to bear the cost of any legal proceedings initiated by citizens whose interests are damaged due to a failure to enforce the act.
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