The New Tapei City Land Administration Department would inspect former legislator and former New Power Party (NPP) chairman Huang Kuo-chang’s (黃國昌) house again, after Huang allegedly tore down an illegal metal shed he had built on public land, the department said yesterday.
Huang’s house in Sijhih District (汐止) was one of the nine properties in the neighborhood authorities found to be occupying public land, which contravened the Urban Planning Act (都市計畫法), the department said.
The former lawmaker and other landowners were ordered to remove the illegal structures before today, otherwise face a NT$60,000 fine each, the department said.
Photo: CNA
Local media reported that construction workers were seen taking down the shed at Huang’s residence based on a photo submitted by an unnamed source late last month, but officials have not independently verified that, it said.
Meanwhile, New Taipei City Councilor Chang Chin-hao (張錦豪) of the Democratic Progressive Party alleged in a Facebook post in July that Huang is the de facto owner of two unlicensed commercial parking lots in the district, one of which is on a conservation area.
The department said that a parking lot owned by Huang’s daughter was zoned for road-traffic-related use, therefore she had the right to utilize it for paid parking.
Huang’s other parking lot was on a lot designated for conservation and the former lawmaker is violating land use codes, it said.
NOTICE GIVEN
The parking lot was built and operated by a tenant who claimed that Huang had no involvement in the matter, the department said.
The tenant was given notice to apply for a license to run the parking lot, but did not do so, it said, adding that the person was fined NT$3,000 on July 31, NT$9,000 on Aug. 24 and NT$60,000 on Monday last week.
Should the tenant fail to comply again, they would face a NT$90,000 fine, the department said, adding that financial penalties could be raised to a maximum of NT$90,000.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) and Chunghwa Telecom yesterday confirmed that an international undersea cable near Keelung Harbor had been cut by a Chinese ship, the Shunxin-39, a freighter registered in Cameroon. Chunghwa Telecom said the cable had its own backup equipment, and the incident would not affect telecommunications within Taiwan. The CGA said it dispatched a ship under its first fleet after receiving word of the incident and located the Shunxin-39 7 nautical miles (13km) north of Yehliu (野柳) at about 4:40pm on Friday. The CGA demanded that the Shunxin-39 return to seas closer to Keelung Harbor for investigation over the
An apartment building in New Taipei City’s Sanchong District (三重) collapsed last night after a nearby construction project earlier in the day allegedly caused it to tilt. Shortly after work began at 9am on an ongoing excavation of a construction site on Liuzhang Street (六張街), two neighboring apartment buildings tilted and cracked, leading to exterior tiles peeling off, city officials said. The fire department then dispatched personnel to help evacuate 22 residents from nine households. After the incident, the city government first filled the building at No. 190, which appeared to be more badly affected, with water to stabilize the
DEEPER REVIEW: After receiving 19 hospital reports of suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health applied for an epidemiological investigation A buffet restaurant in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) is to be fined NT$3 million (US$91,233) after it remained opened despite an order to suspend operations following reports that 32 people had been treated for suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. The health department said it on Tuesday received reports from hospitals of people who had suspected food poisoning symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, stomach pain and diarrhea, after they ate at an INPARADISE (饗饗) branch in Breeze Xinyi on Sunday and Monday. As more than six people who ate at the restaurant sought medical treatment, the department ordered the
Taiwan plans to cull as many as 120,000 invasive green iguanas this year to curb the species’ impact on local farmers, the Ministry of Agriculture said. Chiu Kuo-hao (邱國皓), a section chief in the ministry’s Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency, on Sunday said that green iguanas have been recorded across southern Taiwan and as far north as Taichung. Although there is no reliable data on the species’ total population in the country, it has been estimated to be about 200,000, he said. Chiu said about 70,000 iguanas were culled last year, including about 45,000 in Pingtung County, 12,000 in Tainan, 9,900 in
RSS