At the presidential candidates’ debate televised on Wednesday, Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman and presidential candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) fell short of his usual eloquence, seemingly due to the controversy surrounding his recently revealed ownership of farmland in Hsinchu City. However, Ko still offered a few remarks in an effort to calm things down and preserve his priest-like image in the eyes of his faithful followers.
On the topic of housing justice, Ko criticized President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government for failing to reach its target of building 200,000 social housing units in eight years. Ko suggested that DPP presidential candidate William Lai (賴清德), who is vice president in Tsai’s administration, would not fulfill his campaign promise to build 1 million social housing units.
In contrast, Ko declared that if elected president, he, as the former mayor of Taipei, would extend Taipei’s “successful” experience in the realm of housing justice to the whole of Taiwan. Despite Ko’s confident assertion, anyone who has had an eye on Taipei’s governance would find Ko’s claim of “success” ludicrous.
Tsai’s target of building 200,000 social housing units in eight years ran into the problem that state-owned land is not all under the controlling power of the Ministry of Finance’s National Property Administration. Each county, city and municipality government retains a certain amount of such land and has the power to determine how land in redevelopment zones could be developed.
Consequently, the Tsai administration’s plan could not be accomplished by the central government alone, but only through the joint efforts of the central and local governments. Each local government’s attitude and willingness to cooperate has been a key factor in influencing the success or failure of the plan.
Looking back at the track record of Ko’s eight-year tenure as mayor of Taipei from 2014 to 2022, the results are disappointing, to say the least. On one occasion, Ko left then-commissioner of Taipei’s Department of Urban Development Lin Chou-min (林洲民) dumbstruck by blurting out that “social housing does not need to be so well-built.”
In terms of unit numbers, in eight years his administration only started or finished construction of about 20,000 units — far short of its 50,000 target. Furthermore, the quality of social housing construction was questionable, causing many inconveniences for tenants.
To make matters worse, the monthly rent for some social housing units was reported to be NT$40,000, causing social housing to lose its proper purpose of caring for the disadvantaged. All in all, Taipei’s social housing policies have been far from “successful,” and certainly not a template that Ko could apply to the whole of Taiwan.
If Ko understood the importance of housing justice, he would not need to wait for the presidential debate to present his policy plan. He should have done something about it when he was mayor of Taipei.
The problem is that during his eight-year mayorship, many Taipei residents voted with their feet by moving to New Taipei City or Taoyuan. This caused Taipei’s population to fall from nearly 2.65 million in 2019 to less than 2.5 million in Ko’s last year in office. Given this, how could his housing policies be called a success?
Ko is now embroiled in controversy over his speculative purchase of farmland in Hsinchu. As the saying goes, “Shave your own beard before you shave anyone else’s.”
Ko talks big, but his words cannot be taken seriously. On the contrary, they are just a big joke.
Roger Wu lives in New Taipei City and works in the service sector.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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