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.
‘NON-RED’: Taiwan and Ireland should work together to foster a values-driven, democratic economic system, leveraging their complementary industries, Lai said President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday expressed hopes for closer ties between Taiwan and Ireland, and that both countries could collaborate to create a values-driven, democracy-centered economic system. He made the remarks while meeting with an Irish cross-party parliamentary delegation visiting Taiwan. The delegation, led by John McGuinness, deputy speaker of the Irish house of representatives, known as the Dail, includes Irish lawmakers Malcolm Byrne, Barry Ward, Ken O’Flynn and Teresa Costello. McGuinness, who chairs the Ireland-Taiwan Parliamentary Friendship Association, is a friend of Taiwan, and under his leadership, the association’s influence has grown over the past few years, Lai said. Ireland is
A saleswoman, surnamed Chen (陳), earlier this month was handed an 18-month prison term for embezzling more than 2,000 pairs of shoes while working at a department store in Tainan. The Tainan District Court convicted Chen of embezzlement in a ruling on July 7, sentencing her to prison for illegally profiting NT$7.32 million (US$248,929) at the expense of her employer. Chen was also given the opportunity to reach a financial settlement, but she declined. Chen was responsible for the sales counter of Nike shoes at Tainan’s Shinkong Mitsukoshi Zhongshan branch, where she had been employed since October 2019. She had previously worked
FINAL COUNTDOWN: About 50,000 attended a pro-recall rally yesterday, while the KMT and the TPP plan to rally against the recall votes today Democracy activists, together with arts and education representatives, yesterday organized a motorcade, while thousands gathered on Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei in the evening in support of tomorrow’s recall votes. Recall votes for 24 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers and suspended Hsinchu City mayor Ann Kao (高虹安) are to be held tomorrow, while recall votes for seven other KMT lawmakers are scheduled for Aug. 23. The afternoon motorcade was led by the Spring Breeze Culture and Arts Foundation, the Tyzen Hsiao Foundation and the Friends of Lee Teng-hui Association, and was joined by delegates from the Taiwan Statebuilding Party and the Taiwan Solidarity
TRANSPORT DISRUPTION: More than 100 ferry services were suspended due to rough seas and strong winds, and eight domestic flights were canceled, the ministry said Tropical Storm Wipha intensified slightly yesterday as it passed closest to Taiwan, dumping more than 200mm of rain in Hualien and Taitung counties, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 11am, Wipha was about 210km southwest of Cape Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and was moving west-northwest at 27km per hour (kph). The storm carried maximum sustained winds of 101kph and gusts reaching 126kph, with a 150km radius of strong winds, CWA data showed. Wipha’s outer rainbands began sweeping across Taiwan early yesterday, delivering steady rainfall in the east and scattered showers in other regions, forecasters said. More heavy rain was expected, especially in the eastern