Environmental activists and lawmakers across party lines yesterday urged the Taitung County Government to stop the environmental impact assessment (EIA) on the Miramar Resort, scheduled to take place today, and called on it to demolish the resort building, which has already been declared illegal by the Supreme Administrative Court in Kaohsiung in February.
“It’s so ridiculous that the Taitung County Government wants to hold an EIA meeting to review the Miramar Resort building project, because an EIA meeting is supposed to take place before a project starts, but the building is already there,” Liu Chiung-hsi (劉炯錫), head of Taiwan Environmental Protection Union’s Taitung Office, told a press conference at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei. “In addition, the project’s approval from its previous EIA as well as its building permit have both been revoked by various courts, so this building is illegal and it should be demolished before a new EIA is conducted.”
The Miramar Resort building project — located on a beach in Taitung County’s Beinan Township (卑南) — has been a highly controversial project since it began in 2004.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
The Miramar Group began constructing the resort in October 2005 after being granted a construction permit by the county government.
Although the entire resort — including the hotel building and other facilities — occupies an area of 59,956m2, the county government had initially allowed the Miramar Group to divide the project site into different areas, so that no single area is more than 1 hectare because the law requires any construction project over that size to go through an EIA process.
However, in 2007, the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) disagreed with the division, ruled that an EIA had to be conducted and that the already-started construction was illegal and that it had to be stopped until it received approval from an EIA.
Several court rulings following the EPA announcement revoked Miramar’s construction permit and EIA result, and ruled that the county government should order a stop to the construction. However, the construction continued because the county government argued that the permit was still valid until a final court ruling was handed down.
However, when the final court ruling to revoke the EIA result for the project and declare the building illegal was handed down by the Supreme Administrative Court in February, construction still continued and the county government said the project had been declared illegal due to “procedural issues.”
To resolve these “procedural issues,” the county government decided to conduct another EIA today, for a building project that has already been completed.
“I can guarantee you that the Miramar Resort will pass the EIA tomorrow [Saturday],” Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chiu Wen-yen (邱文彥) said. “It’s so obvious that the county government sides with the Miramar Group, otherwise, why would it be in such a hurry to hold an EIA meeting on Saturday, which is a holiday?”
He said that since the Miramar Resort is located within a traditional Amis area, “the local Amis tribe should be consulted, as stipulated by the Aboriginal Basic Act [原住民族基本法] .”
“I’m not against developments in Taitung, but they should be sustainable ones,” he said. “The development of Taitung should be based on respecting history, culture, ecology and the environment.”
Citizens of the Earth Taiwan board member Thomas Chan (詹順貴), who is also an attorney, questioned the validity of the EIA meeting today.
“The scale and facility of the Miramar Resort has met the criteria for an ‘international tourism hotel’ provided by law, and hence, it falls under the jurisdiction of the central government, and the EIA for it should be conducted by the EPA, not by the local government,” he said.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lin Shu-fen (林淑芬), said it is ridiculous that an EIA is to be conducted for a project that has been completed.
“The Miramar Group certainly does not respect the law at all,” she said. “We should boycott a corporation that behaves like that.”
DPP legislators Tien Chiu-chin (田秋堇) and Liu Chao-hao (劉櫂豪) of Taitung County, KMT Legislator Liao Kuo-tung (廖國棟) of the Amis tribe and People First Party Legislator Chang Show-foong (張曉風) also attended the news conference to show their support.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
RSS