Residents of New Taipei City’s (新北市) Linkou District (林口) yesterday protested a plan to turn 16 hectares of woodland and parks into an athletes’ village for the 2017 Universiade and clashed verbally with officials at a presentation for the project.
“Call off the meeting,” “Show some respect for Linkou residents,” residents shouted while holding up a giant banner that read: “No to deforestation in Linkou by Taipei City,” interrupting the meeting of Taipei and New Taipei City officials to present the athletes’ village project at Linkou Senior High School yesterday afternoon.
To accommodate the needs of athletes taking part in the Universiade, which will be hosted by the Taipei City Government, an athletes’ village in Linkou is being planned and the dormitories for athletes will later be converted into 3,000 housing units for sale or rent.
Photo: Lai Hsiao-tung, Taipei Times
The plan met with strong opposition from residents when it was made public last year.
“You know why we’re so upset? Because you never told us about it before you selected the site,” Linkou resident Chu Yu-lin (朱玉麟) shouted at officials sitting in the front.
“A decision that concerns the public should not be made by just a few,” Chu added.
Some residents also challenged the legitimacy of the meeting.
“The Taipei City Government notified the New Taipei City Government about the meeting last week and it was even later when we residents received notice. Some people in some neighborhoods learned about it on Thursday and I never even got the news,” said Hsu Chu-feng (許主峰), a teacher at Linkou Community College.
“I suspect this is a trick that the government played so that those affected wouldn’t be able to make it to the meeting to express their opposition,” Hsu said.
As officials insisted on continuing the meeting, most opponents to the plan decided to withdraw from the meeting, leaving about two-thirds of the seats empty.
“It’s ridiculous that we have to sacrifice 16 hectares of woodland with rich biodiversity and parks to cater to the needs of a sports event that only lasts two weeks,” Action Alliance for Saving Woodlands in Linkou convener Wang Chen-nai (王貞乃) said.
“It took more than 40 years for threes to grow on those lands, and five of the trees have been placed on the protected trees list because of their age by the [New Taipei City] Department of Agriculture. We are strongly opposed to the destruction of such a rare area in the Taipei metropolitan region.”
Chu said he was worried that the athletes’ village would destroy the quality of life in Linkou.
“Although most newly completed housing complexes are still empty, traffic problems have already appeared. The problem would only get worse because the government plans to turn the athletes’ dormitories into about 3,000 housing units for sale or for rent. Don’t forget that in Gueishan Township (龜山), Taoyuan County, on the other side of the Linkou Plateau, the government is also planning to build more social housing complexes,” Chu said.
“In addition, we’re already experiencing a water shortage, I don’t know how they’re going to supply enough water for tens of thousands of more people,” Chu added.
In a press release, the New Taipei City Department of Urban and Rural Development said the Taipei City Government has already agreed to preserve the Linkou Sports Park, adding that the New Taipei City Government would continue to negotiate with Taipei on the project’s impacts on traffic and ecology.
Hong Kong singer Andy Lau’s (劉德華) concert in Taipei tonight has been cancelled due to Typhoon Kong-rei and is to be held at noon on Saturday instead, the concert organizer SuperDome said in a statement this afternoon. Tonight’s concert at Taipei Arena was to be the first of four consecutive nightly performances by Lau in Taipei, but it was called off at the request of Taipei Metro, the operator of the venue, due to the weather, said the organizer. Taipei Metro said the concert was cancelled out of consideration for the audience’s safety. The decision disappointed a number of Lau’s fans who had
Commuters in Taipei picked their way through debris and navigated disrupted transit schedules this morning on their way to work and school, as the city was still working to clear the streets in the aftermath of Typhoon Kong-rey. By 11pm yesterday, there were estimated 2,000 trees down in the city, as well as 390 reports of infrastructure damage, 318 reports of building damage and 307 reports of fallen signs, the Taipei Public Works Department said. Workers were mobilized late last night to clear the debris as soon as possible, the department said. However, as of this morning, many people were leaving messages
A Canadian dental assistant was recently indicted by prosecutors after she was caught in August trying to smuggle 32kg of marijuana into Taiwan, the Aviation Police Bureau said on Wednesday. The 30-year-old was arrested on Aug. 4 after arriving on a flight to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, Chang Tsung-lung (張驄瀧), a squad chief in the Aviation Police Bureau’s Criminal Investigation Division, told reporters. Customs officials noticed irregularities when the woman’s two suitcases passed through X-ray baggage scanners, Chang said. Upon searching them, officers discovered 32.61kg of marijuana, which local media outlets estimated to have a market value of more than NT$50 million (US$1.56
FATALITIES: The storm claimed at least two lives — a female passenger in a truck that was struck by a falling tree and a man who was hit by a utility pole Workers cleared fallen trees and shop owners swept up debris yesterday after one of the biggest typhoons to hit the nation in decades claimed at least two lives. Typhoon Kong-rey was packing winds of 184kph when it slammed into eastern Taiwan on Thursday, uprooting trees, triggering floods and landslides, and knocking out power as it swept across the nation. A 56-year-old female foreign national died from her injuries after the small truck she was in was struck by a falling tree on Provincial Highway 14A early on Thursday. The second death was reported at 8pm in Taipei on Thursday after a 48-year-old man
RSS