The Construction and Planning Agency yesterday denied that it deliberately stalled a review for the Taipei Dome project, adding that it would work with the Taipei City Government to expedite the review as long as the city can guarantee that the stadium is safe to use.
The NT$37 billion (US$1.3 billion) stadium is scheduled to be completed this year after construction that has lasted for nearly a decade.
Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) on Wednesday said that the agency was purposely delaying its review of the stadium and making it difficult for the city to secure approval, adding that the Democratic Progressive Party government did not want to give Ko credit for completing the project during his term.
Ko said that he was elected mayor to resolve controversies over the project and did not consider the stadium one of his accomplishments, but added that the stadium’s contractor, Farglory Group, delivered a much better design than the one that was presented to his predecessor.
“We had insisted that Farglory change the design of the stadium’s B1 floor if it intended to make it a shelter, where people can go in emergency situations,” he said. “We have given the modified B1 floor plan to the agency. It should review it as quickly as possible, rather than deliberately stall it.”
The agency said that people are looking forward to the completion of the dome, adding that it is willing to assist the city government in completing relevant assessments as quickly as possible, as long as the city can assure the public of the stadium’s safety.
The Taipei Department of Urban Development should verify if the dome’s architects have accurately certified the B1 floor as an emergency shelter, the agency said.
“We had twice through official correspondence told the city government that it needed to explain why it suddenly respected the certification produced by the architects, when it had completely disagreed with their certification when it was first produced and strongly advocated that Farglory revise the design of the emergency shelter. They need to explain to us and the public the professional deliberations that led to the turn of events,” it said.
Instead of giving a detailed explanation, the city only said that it respected the certification of the architects and said nothing about the rationale for the decision, the agency said.
“We affirm the department’s efforts for finally clarifying through a statement issued on Wednesday night that it has verified B1 as an emergency shelter. We hope that it can quickly deliver those contents mentioned in the statement, and we will assist it in completing all the due procedures,” the agency said.
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
INCREASED CAPACITY: The flights on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays would leave Singapore in the morning and Taipei in the afternoon Singapore Airlines is adding four supplementary flights to Taipei per week until May to meet increased tourist and business travel demand, the carrier said on Friday. The addition would raise the number of weekly flights it operates to Taipei to 18, Singapore Airlines Taiwan general manager Timothy Ouyang (歐陽漢源) said. The airline has recorded a steady rise in tourist and business travel to and from Taipei, and aims to provide more flexible travel arrangements for passengers, said Ouyang, who assumed the post in July last year. From now until Saturday next week, four additional flights would depart from Singapore on Monday, Wednesday, Friday
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