The Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) yesterday said it was the decisions made by the Legislative Yuan and Taoyuan City Government to expand the number of people eligible to attend the preparatory meetings for land expropriation hearings that caused a delay in completing Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport’s third runway project, adding that the city government should focus on acquiring the land needed for the project.
The CAA issued an official statement after Taoyuan Mayor Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) was quoted in media reports as criticizing the agency, saying it was extremely inefficient and short-sighted, as it will take at least 15 years just to finish an airport runway.
The central government might as well give up because the same project would take China only three years to finish, while democratic countries could get the job done in five years, he said.
The CAA said it was asked by Cheng, and also by lawmakers serving on the legislature’s Transportation Committee, to ask all the residents within the Phase I Development Area of the Taoyuan Aerotropolis Project to attend preparatory meetings for the administrative hearings, rather than just the owners of farmland whose properties are to be expropriated.
Because of the request, the CAA said the number of people it was supposed to notify to attend preparatory meetings rose from approximately 8,000 to about 20,000, so it then had to postpone the administrative hearings by more than seven months.
It is aiming to finish administrative hearings before the end of April and the results would be submitted to the Ministry of the Interior in the second half of the year to help the CAA determine the properties to be expropriated and the ratio of “land for compensation” that should be distributed back to owners, the CAA said.
From next year through 2018, both the Ministry of the Interior and the Taoyuan City Government still have a series of procedures to fulfill before the city can begin acquiring lands for the Taoyuan Aerotropolis Project, which includes building the third runway.
Because the number of residents to be relocated is unprecedented in the nation’s history, the ministry’s urban planning commission required the CAA to preserve communities and to relocate residents whose land is to be expropriated only after new accommodation for these residents has been built. The measure has nevertheless increased the difficulties of acquiring the land, the CAA said.
It said Taoyuan International Airport Corp would try to finish planning and building the third runway over the next five years, but it emphasized that the key is to obtain the properties needed to build it.
“Such a difficult task requires the division of labor between central and local governments. Both need to ascertain that they have completed all the legal procedures to protect the interests of the residents and avoid disputes with civilians,” the CAA said.
NATIONAL SECURITY: Authorities are working to confirm the identities of the military personnel involved and investigating possible illegal conduct and regulatory violations Authorities are probing possible national security implications after Kinmen police and immigration officers on Sunday found a Chinese woman allegedly posing as a tourist while engaging in prostitution involving more than 10 military personnel. The woman, surnamed Chen (陳), has since been deported, authorities said, adding that investigators are still working to confirm the identities of those implicated, as the records only listed code names and aliases. The case stemmed from a report received by the Kinmen District Prosecutors’ Office on Friday last week from the Jinhu Precinct of the Kinmen County Police Bureau. On Sunday, police, along with the National Immigration
GLOBALGIVING: ‘ Caving to external pressure is not acceptable for an organization that has cultivated justice reform and human rights for 30 years,’ one NGO said A slew of non-government organizations (NGOs) have withdrawn from the GlobalGiving fundraising platform after it announced it would use “Chinese Taipei” instead of “Taiwan” from next month. The Taiwan Good Rice Association wrote on Facebook on Friday that it was informed on April 28 via a teleconference call of the change, which was made because the platform wanted to operate in China. Taiwan Good Rice is to terminate all cooperative relationships with GlobalGiving in response to the platform’s “unilateral and non-negotiable” decision to remove references to Taiwan, the NGO said. “Taiwan is in the official name of Taiwan Good Rice Association and the
HEAVY WEATHER: Typhoon Jangmi is due to crash straight into the Ryukyus as airlines look to shift flights to larger aircraft or cancel flights to Okinawa entirely Taiwan’s international air carriers announced flight adjustments over the weekend as Typhoon Jangmi is forecast to hit the Ryukyu Islands today and tomorrow. The Central Weather Administration (CWA) upgraded Jangmi from a tropical storm to a typhoon at 8am yesterday, with the eye located 580km south of Naha city. It was moving north at 19kph. Today, China Airlines’ CI-120, CI-121, CI-122 and CI-123 flights between Taoyuan and Naha, Okinawa, have been canceled as well as CI-132 and CI-133 between Kaohsiung and Naha. EVA Air’s BR-112, BR-113, BR-186 and BR-185 flights between Taoyuan and Naha are also canceled. Low-cost carrier Tigerair Taiwan canceled IT-230,
MULTIPRONGED APPROACH: China has sought to pressure Palau across a number of fronts, but the island nation has staunchly resisted overtures to ditch Taiwan Palau has been firm in backing Taiwan despite Chinese pressure that uses tourism economics, cyberattacks and criminal infiltration as tools to threaten the Pacific ally into renouncing its recognition of Taiwan as a sovereign state. The Presidential Office yesterday announced that Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) would visit Palau from Saturday to Wednesday next week at the invitation of Palauan President Surangel Whipps Jr. Whipps in April said in an interview that China had outspokenly asked Palau to “denounce Taiwan.” “And we have said: ‘We have no enemies, but nobody tells us who our friends are,’” he said. Whipps has told reporters multiple times
RSS