Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman and presidential candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday promised to restore an illegal parking lot that was leased to a tour bus company in Hsinchu City to farmland, after facing criticism over the property he co-owns.
On Tuesday, Hsinchu City Government officials inspected the plot at the city’s Lungen Section No. 1320, confirming that it is owned by six people and is located in a zone designated for farming and grazing land.
They said they would investigate to determine whether the property obtained proper permission to be paved and used as parking lot.
Photo: Tsai Chang-sheng, Taipei Times
Ko told reporters that he bought the plot with five other doctors in 2008, and owns about one-fifth, or five of the 24 parcels, of the 2,309m2 plot.
He said he has put up a notice to warn people that large equipment would operate on the site in the coming days to remove the pavement.
Taiwan Statebuilding Party spokeswoman Yang Pei-hua (楊佩樺), who visited the site yesterday, said that Ko had broken the law by turning farmland into a parking lot, engaged in land speculation and hid the parking lot from the public.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) members and others also visited the site to see if work had started to remove the parking lot.
“Ko, as the TPP’s presidential candidate, has talked about ‘housing justice’ for young people and called for returning land to citizens. These all sound like righteous policies, but now Ko has been found to own this farmland in Hsinchu City, valued at more NT$10 million [US$319,387],” DPP Hsinchu City Councilor Yang Ling-yi (楊玲宜) said.
“Ko knows the law, but he illegally paved it to make money leasing it for parking. Now after getting caught, he just mentioned it in a lighthearted way to cover up this scandal. His behavior is shameless,” Yang said.
DPP Hsinchu City Councilor Tseng Tzu-cheng (曾資程) said the property seemed to conflict with Ko’s farming policy.
“Ko presented his agricultural policy this month, promising to protect Taiwan’s farmland, and apply smart technology to improve farm management. Now he is shown to own farmland, which he paved over,” Tseng said.
DPP spokesman Chang Chih-hao (張志豪) said that Ko contravened regulations by making money leasing the parking lot, and possibly profiting if the land is later rezoned.
“We demand Ko apply his touted values of transparency and pragmatism on himself, and reveal how much money he has earned from the land and how much tax he has paid in the past 15 years,” Chang said.
Meanwhile, Vice President William Lai (賴清德), the DPP’s presidential candidate, responded to criticism that his family’s property in a traditional coal mining area of New Taipei City’s Wanli District (萬里) is an illegal structure and should be razed.
Lai, whose father worked in the coal pits, said that all the housing in that area were once basic shelters for miners, which have existed for more than 60 years and were approved at the time by the local government.
Although miners and their families improved the homes over time, they remain simple structures, he said.
“My parent’s house has existed there since 1958, which was legally built prior to the passing of the Mining Act (礦業法) in 1963, and other local construction laws in the 1980s. It is clear that houses in these mining areas are already legal,” he said.
Local governments were negligent in not addressing the properties for decades after the mines were exhausted, he said, adding that they should have provided a legal framework for their renovation or reconstruction.
“These houses cannot be compared to so-called ‘illegal structures’ found elsewhere in the city, as there are laws governing city planning and housing construction,” he said.
The Ministry of Education (MOE) is to launch a new program to encourage international students to stay in Taiwan and explore job opportunities here after graduation, Deputy Minister of Education Yeh Ping-cheng (葉丙成) said on Friday. The government would provide full scholarships for international students to further their studies for two years in Taiwan, so those who want to pursue a master’s degree can consider applying for the program, he said. The fields included are science, technology, engineering, mathematics, semiconductors and finance, Yeh added. The program, called “Intense 2+2,” would also assist international students who completed the two years of further studies in
Former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) departed for Europe on Friday night, with planned stops in Lithuania and Denmark. Tsai arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport on Friday night, but did not speak to reporters before departing. Tsai wrote on social media later that the purpose of the trip was to reaffirm the commitment of Taiwanese to working with democratic allies to promote regional security and stability, upholding freedom and democracy, and defending their homeland. She also expressed hope that through joint efforts, Taiwan and Europe would continue to be partners building up economic resilience on the global stage. The former president was to first
Taiwan will now have four additional national holidays after the Legislative Yuan passed an amendment today, which also made Labor Day a national holiday for all sectors. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their majority in the Legislative Yuan to pass the amendment to the Act on Implementing Memorial Days and State Holidays (紀念日及節日實施辦法), which the parties jointly proposed, in its third and final reading today. The legislature passed the bill to amend the act, which is currently enforced administratively, raising it to the legal level. The new legislation recognizes Confucius’ birthday on Sept. 28, the
MORE NEEDED: Recall drives against legislators in Miaoli’s two districts and Hsinchu’s second district were still a few thousand signatures short of the second-stage threshold Campaigners aiming to recall Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators yesterday said they expect success in 30 out of 35 districts where drives have passed the second-stage threshold, which would mark a record number of recall votes held at once. Hsinchu County recall campaigners yesterday announced that they reached the second-stage threshold in the recall effort against Legislator Lin Szu-ming (林思銘). A total of 26,414 signatures have been gathered over the past two months, surpassing the 10 percent threshold of 23,287 in Hsinchu County’s second electoral district, chief campaigner Hsieh Ting-ting (謝婷婷) said. “Our target is to gather an additional 1,500 signatures to reach
RSS