The environmental impact assessment process for the Taipei Dome construction project was delayed again yesterday after the city’s Environmental Impact Assessment Review Committee decided to postpone the vote because of insufficient information from the contractor.
The committee has postponed the final voting on the assessment four times since 2007. During the fifth meeting yesterday at Taipei City Hall, many committee members voiced concern about the necessity of building a 40,000-seat stadium in downtown Taipei and its possible impact on local traffic.
“We already have Taipei Arena in downtown and rather than sports events, it is mostly used as a venue for concerts. Given that the market size of sports in Taiwan is just not large enough, do we need a bigger sports facility in the city?” committee member Huang Jun-hung (黃俊鴻), a civil engineering professor at National Central University, said during the meeting.
Committee member Kuo Su-chiu (郭素秋) challenged what she called a disproportion between sports and business facilities.
In addition to the indoor stadium, the complex would also include a surrounding shopping and residential area, a movie theater and a hotel. The floor area of the shopping area would account for 70 percent of the complex.
Amid concerns about the dome from committee members, the committee chair, Taipei City’s Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Wu Sheng-chung (吳聖忠), declined to put the project to vote and said the department would ask the contractor, Farglory Group, to offer more information on the project before gathering the committee again to complete the review process.
The decision angered environmental activists who had been waiting outside for the result.
Taiwan Green Party spokesman Pan Han-shen (潘翰聲) accused the city government of favoring the contractor and refusing to put an end to a policy mistake.
He said the size of the Taipei Dome in the revised plan only shrank by 3 percent compared with the original plan and that the city should not consider a revised plan that made little difference to the negative impacts.
Janus Lee (李柏熹), manager of Farglory’s operation administration department, said the company was disappointed at the long-delayed process, but will provide more information in accordance with the committee’s request.
“We have made all the revisions upon request and done a lot of explaining over the years. I don’t think there’s much we can revise in the project,” he said.
The group signed the contract with the city in 2006 and plans to invest more than NT$23 billion (US$700 million) in the complex. Since then, ongoing protests from environmentalists and local residents have stalled the review process.
Taiwan is stepping up plans to create self-sufficient supply chains for combat drones and increase foreign orders from the US to counter China’s numerical superiority, a defense official said on Saturday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, the official said the nation’s armed forces are in agreement with US Admiral Samuel Paparo’s assessment that Taiwan’s military must be prepared to turn the nation’s waters into a “hellscape” for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Paparo, the commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, reiterated the concept during a Congressional hearing in Washington on Wednesday. He first coined the term in a security conference last
A magnitude 4.3 earthquake struck eastern Taiwan's Hualien County at 8:31am today, according to the Central Weather Administration (CWA). The epicenter of the temblor was located in Hualien County, about 70.3 kilometers south southwest of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 23.2km, according to the administration. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake's intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County, where it measured 3 on Taiwan's 7-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 2 in Hualien and Nantou counties, the CWA said.
The Overseas Community Affairs Council (OCAC) yesterday announced a fundraising campaign to support survivors of the magnitude 7.7 earthquake that struck Myanmar on March 28, with two prayer events scheduled in Taipei and Taichung later this week. “While initial rescue operations have concluded [in Myanmar], many survivors are now facing increasingly difficult living conditions,” OCAC Minister Hsu Chia-ching (徐佳青) told a news conference in Taipei. The fundraising campaign, which runs through May 31, is focused on supporting the reconstruction of damaged overseas compatriot schools, assisting students from Myanmar in Taiwan, and providing essential items, such as drinking water, food and medical supplies,
New Party Deputy Secretary-General You Chih-pin (游智彬) this morning went to the National Immigration Agency (NIA) to “turn himself in” after being notified that he had failed to provide proof of having renounced his Chinese household registration. He was one of more than 10,000 naturalized Taiwanese citizens from China who were informed by the NIA that their Taiwanese citizenship might be revoked if they fail to provide the proof in three months, people familiar with the matter said. You said he has proof that he had renounced his Chinese household registration and demanded the NIA provide proof that he still had Chinese
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