More than 40 percent of buildings in Taipei do not have elevators, Ministry of the Interior data show on its Real Estate Information Platform.
Critics say that this situation creates problems for seniors, especially in an aging society.
Tax registration certificates show that there are about 928,000 buildings in Taipei. Among them, 391,200 are four or five-story residential buildings, or about 43 percent.
Photo: Hsu Yi-ping, Taipei Times
The proportion is rising every year, real-estate brokerages said.
More than 52 percent of the buildings in the city are three to five floors, and almost half of Taipei’s residential buildings are estimated to not have elevators.
Four-story and five-story buildings in the city are mostly residential buildings without elevators, and those with fewer than four floors are bungalows, houses or villas, which also usually require residents to use stairs, real-estate brokerages said.
Taiwan in 2018 became an aging society — one in which more than 14 percent of the population is 65 or older, making Taipei housing conditions increasingly difficult for the elderly, they said.
Some people as they age might develop increased reluctance to leave home if they are on an upper floor with no elevator, they added.
It is unknown whether urban renewal projects proposed by Taipei mayor-elect Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) address the problem, they said.
Meanwhile, about 649,300 buildings in Taipei are more than 30 years old, accounting for about 70 percent of the city’s buildings, with the average age being 37 years, ministry data showed.
Only 25,000 buildings were built within the past five years, accounting for fewer than 3 percent, indicating a slow pace of development.
Local election candidates often promise reconstruction of older homes, real-estate analyst Ho Shih-chang (何世昌) said.
However, “everyone knows that it is very difficult for governments to intervene in private urban renewal projects,” so election platforms tend to only focus on public projects, he said.
Sinyi Realty Inc research manager Tseng Ching-der (曾敬德) said that residences in Taipei’s alleys were built nearly 40 years ago when the city was developing rapidly.
As many are now deteriorating, they have become an urgent problem for the newly elected Taipei city council and mayor, he added.
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