Taipei would be able to save up to NT$40 billion (US$1.27 billion) if the central government agrees to provide land to build public housing or take part in joint housing development projects, Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said yesterday.
Ko made the remarks while accompanying Premier Lin Chuan (林全) to inspect Xinlong Public Housing buildings in Taipei’s Wenshan District (文山), where Lin was briefed on the buildings’ “smart” power systems and the city’s timetable for public housing projects in the area.
Lin praised the city’s progress in promoting public housing and told Ko that he plays a “pivotal role” in realizing President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) goal of building 200,000 public housing units by 2024.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
The mayor said that his administration has made some progress on public housing projects after taking office more than a year ago.
His advice for Tsai is that her team must achieve success at one site to show the public that it is producing results, Ko said, adding that public housing is a shared goal between Taipei and the central government, “saving a lot of trouble.”
Asked about the progress of negotiations with the Ministry of Defense regarding a former military vehicle maintenance site in Xinyi District (信義), which the city has asked for to build public housing, Ko said that the municipality would request that the land be provided to his administration for free.
As the ministry needs to make preparations for a lack of dormitories in connection with its plan to implement an all-voluntary recruitment policy, the city would transfer a number of housing units on the site to the ministry to be used as dormitories, with the number of units to be determined by the land’s value, the mayor said.
In separate news, the venue for a banquet to be attended by Chinese officials participating in the Taipei-Shanghai forum has been changed from the Mandarin Oriental hotel to an employees’ common area in the basement of the Taipei City Hall.
The banquet on Monday evening is to be attended by a delegation headed by Shanghai Municipal United Front Work Department Director Sha Hailin (沙海林).
Asked by reporters if the arrangement would make Taipei seem “cheap,” Ko said that the Chinese delegation proposed that the venue be changed, as dining at the Mandarin Oriental would be at odds with Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) policy against extravagant behavior.
Ko said he proposed that the venue be changed to the city hall’s basement.
Asked whether he had been careless for not having factored in Xi’s policy when choosing the banquet’s venue, Ko said that he chose the hotel for its grandeur, thinking that it would impress the guests.
Ko said that he is easygoing and does not pay much attention to details, unlike Sha, who is a “meticulous” person.
Four factors led to the declaration of a typhoon day and the cancelation of classes yesterday, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said. Work and classes were canceled across Taiwan yesterday as Typhoon Krathon was forecast to make landfall in the southern part of the country. However, northern Taiwan had only heavy winds during the day and rain in the evening, leading some to criticize the cancelation. Speaking at a Taipei City Council meeting yesterday, Chiang said the decision was made due to the possibility of landslides and other problems in mountainous areas, the need to avoid a potentially dangerous commute for those
There are 77 incidents of Taiwanese travelers going missing in China between January last year and last month, the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) said. More than 40 remain unreachable, SEF Secretary-General Luo Wen-jia (羅文嘉) said on Friday. Most of the reachable people in the more than 30 other incidents were allegedly involved in fraud, while some had disappeared for personal reasons, Luo said. One of these people is Kuo Yu-hsuan (郭宇軒), a 22-year-old Taiwanese man from Kaohsiung who went missing while visiting China in August. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office last month said in a news statement that he was under investigation
PRO-CHINA SLOGANS: Two DPP members criticized police officers’ lack of action at the scene, saying that law enforcement authorities should investigate the incident Chinese tourists allegedly interrupted a protest in Taipei on Tuesday held by Hong Kongers, knocked down several flags and shouted: “Taiwan and Hong Kong belong to China.” Hong Kong democracy activists were holding a demonstration as Tuesday was China’s National Day. A video posted online by civic group Hong Kong Outlanders shows a couple, who are allegedly Chinese, during the demonstration. “Today is China’s National Day, and I won’t allow the displaying of these flags,” the male yells in the video before pushing some demonstrators and knocking down a few flagpoles. Radio Free Asia reported that some of the demonstrators
China is attempting to subsume Taiwanese culture under Chinese culture by promulgating legislation on preserving documents on ties between the Minnan region and Taiwan, a Taiwanese academic said yesterday. China on Tuesday enforced the Fujian Province Minnan and Taiwan Document Protection Act to counter Taiwanese cultural independence with historical evidence that would root out misleading claims, Chinese-language media outlet Straits Today reported yesterday. The act is “China’s first ad hoc local regulations in the cultural field that involve Taiwan and is a concrete step toward implementing the integrated development demonstration zone,” Fujian Provincial Archives deputy director Ma Jun-fan (馬俊凡) said. The documents
RSS