The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office today summoned a Taipei city councilor to testify about whether former Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) knowingly violated the law during his tenure regarding the Core Pacific City Co (京華城) project.
Prosecutors cited Taipei City Councilor Miao Po-ya’s (苗博雅) comments from Nov. 11, 2020, when she questioned then-mayor Ko regarding the treatment given to the Core Pacific City project after it was granted an increased floor area ratio.
The incentives the company received “had no legal basis,” Miao said at the time, citing that it received funds earmarked for urban renewal projects when it was neither an old or dangerous building.
Photo: Taipei Times file photo
In an interview yesterday, Miao said that she would answer all questions from both prosecutors’ and defendants’ lawyers truthfully, adding that as a legal professional she knows that testifying is part of a citizen’s obligations.
She is to face questions from prosecutors as well as lawyers representing defendants Ko, Taipei City Councilor Angela Ying (應曉薇) and Sheen Ching-jing (沈慶京), founder and chairman of the real-estate conglomerate Core Pacific Group.
The three defendants, as well as Ko’s former mayoral office head Lee Wen-tsung (李文宗), are all currently being held incommunicado, although the detention period is set to expire shortly.
Miao’s testimony would play a role in whether the four are released or remain in detention.
At the heart of the corruption case are allegations that the extra floor area ratio granted to Core Pacific Group allowed it to derive extra financial gains of more than NT$40 billion (US$1.25 billion).
Increased floor area ratio is usually granted as an incentive in urban renewal projects to permit more floor area, but usually at 130 to 150 percent.
The floor area ratio is the ratio of a building's total floor area to the size of the parcel of land on which it is built.
The project in question allegedly saw the floor area ratio increase from 392 percent to 840 percent.
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