Urban renewal regulations should be revised to clearly define public interests, restrictions on the use of forced demolitions and provide new mediums for conflict resolution, rights campaigners said yesterday at a public meeting hosted by the Construction and Planning Agency.
“Merely tacking on the label ‘improving living conditions’ should not count as complying with requirements to meet public interests,” said Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Yu Mei-nu (尤美女), whose sponsorship of a motion passed by the legislature’s Internal Administration Committee in June was the impetus for the hearing.
Yu said the hearing should address key issues such as striking a balance between urban renewal and city planning, and drawing a clear line between public and private authority.
“The urban renewal system lacks a mechanism for resolving conflict, leading to protests every time it arises,” she said, adding that guaranteeing good faith negotiations has been problematic.
“Current discussions on amendments to the Urban Renewal Act (都市更新條例) do not include what kind of public interest conditions warrant forced demolitions, or what conditions should apply before a forced demolition can be carried out,” Taiwan Anti-Forced Eviction Alliance member Peng Chih-cheng (彭至誠) said.
Current regulations require the government to “order” rather than “permit” demolitions carried out on the behalf of private firms, thus forcing the government to shoulder legal responsibility, Peng said.
Wang Tong-kai (王東凱) — the last holdout among owners of a building in Yongchun Community (永春) in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) that was demolished last month — said that current regulations give landowners few options to stop a demolition once a government order has been issued.
“Even if I win in court, the company that is executing the order will still be able to carry out the demolition and building [during the appeals process], effectively turning the court ruling into a worthless piece of paper,” he said. “If a firm has the right to begin building as long as it receives a permit, how can you guarantee that it will negotiate in good faith?”
Taiwan Association of Human Rights representative Huang Hui-yu (黃慧瑜) said that local government policy is skewed in favor of developers by providing urban renewal projects with automatic “volume incentives,” which help firms recover construction costs by allowing them to build taller structures.
National Chengchi University land economics professor Tai Hsiu-hsiung (戴秀雄) said “volume incentives” for demolishing and reconstructing older housing are wasteful.
“Just because your house is old does not mean the government has an obligation to get you another one — you ought to pay for it yourself,” he said.
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
An aviation jacket patch showing a Formosan black bear punching Winnie the Pooh has become popular overseas, including at an aviation festival held by the Japan Air Self-Defense Force at the Ashiya Airbase yesterday. The patch was designed last year by Taiwanese designer Hsu Fu-yu (徐福佑), who said that it was inspired by Taiwan’s countermeasures against frequent Chinese military aircraft incursions. The badge shows a Formosan black bear holding a Republic of China flag as it punches Winnie the Pooh — a reference to Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) — who is dressed in red and is holding a honey pot with
Celebrations marking Double Ten National Day are to begin in Taipei today before culminating in a fireworks display in Yunlin County on the night of Thursday next week. To start the celebrations, a concert is to be held at the Taipei Dome at 4pm today, featuring a lineup of award-winning singers, including Jody Chiang (江蕙), Samingad (紀曉君) and Huang Fei (黃妃), Taipei tourism bureau official Chueh Yu-ling (闕玉玲) told a news conference yesterday. School choirs, including the Pqwasan na Taoshan Choir and Hngzyang na Matui & Nahuy Children’s Choir, and the Ministry of National Defense Symphony Orchestra, flag presentation unit and choirs,
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
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