The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday appealed against a ruling by the Taipei District Court to release Taiwan People’s Party Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) without bail early on Monday amid a probe into alleged corruption involving a shopping center redevelopment project.
The court is to rule on the appeal today.
Earlier yesterday, a Taipei City government official was barred from leaving Taiwan over her alleged role in suspected corruption linked to the project, Core Pacific City, also known as Living Mall (京華城購物中心).
Photo: CNA
Taipei Urban Planning Commission Executive Secretary Shao Hsiu-pei (邵琇珮) was questioned as a suspect overnight by prosecutors.
Prosecutors searched her home on Monday, one day after she returned from a two-week trip to Japan.
They said Shao illegally helped Core Pacific Group (威京集團) raise the floor area ratio (FAR) of the redevelopment project in 2020 to financially benefit the company.
The project involves building a new office complex, Core Pacific Plaza, on the site of the Core Pacific City shopping mall in Taipei’s Songshan District (松山).
Shao was a chief engineer at the Taipei Department of Urban Development at the time.
Former Taipei deputy mayor Pong Cheng-sheng (彭振聲), Taipei City Councilor Ying Hsiao-wei (應曉薇), Ying’s assistant Wu Shun-min (吳順民) and Core Pacific Group chairman Sheen Ching-jing (沈慶京) have been detained and held incommunicado for their alleged involvement in the case.
Chung Yuan Christian University distinguished professor of architecture Tseng Kuang-tsung (曾光宗), who was a member of the Taipei Urban Planning Committee when it reviewed the Core Pacific City case, yesterday wrote on Facebook that while the people involved should be held legally responsible, the case serves as an opportunity for civic education.
While a committee member from January 2017 to December 2020, he attended five meetings for the project, but was not a member when the committee adopted an urban renewal award that allowed the FAR to increase 20 percent to 840 percent, he said.
“Elected officials in high positions must be able to distinguish between right and wrong, especially when facing the Core Pacific City project that involves such huge interests,” Tseng said. “It had been reviewed for six years, so a politician should not have used ‘I do not know’ to casually brush it off.”
He was referring to Ko’s remarks after his release on Monday, when he said he only knew about the project’s FAR being increased to a maximum of 840 percent in March or April this year because of media coverage on the issue.
As for the Taipei Department of Urban Development, Tseng said it must remain professional, instead of sending an allegedly illegal case to the committee for review, throwing the committee members under the bus.
During the review, the department should not have proposed “solutions” to help the applicants either, he added.
Regarding private companies, Tseng said that seeking more FAR to increase profit is understandable, but they should never use illegal methods to acquire additional building space, as the ratio bonus belongs to the public, and the public interest must be protected, not casually gifted to a private company.
Committee members should remain neutral when reviewing cases, and bravely raise objections if a proposal contravenes regulations or is inappropriate, he said, adding that not speaking up or expressing reserved or vague opinions might ultimately be deemed by the department as agreement, he said.
The building bulk ratio bonus was originally a well-intended incentive, but as real-estate projects often involve huge interests, cases of granting excessive bonuses had become scandals, while in the end, urban environment problems fall on the city residents to pay, Tseng said.
He said the building bulk ratio bonus mechanism should be reviewed and regulations revised to avoid scandals.
Taipei and New Taipei City government officials are aiming to have the first phase of the Wanhua-Jungho-Shulin Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) line completed and opened by 2027, following the arrival of the first train set yesterday. The 22km-long Light Green Line would connect four densely populated districts in Taipei and New Taipei City: Wanhua (萬華), Jhonghe (中和), Tucheng (土城) and Shulin (樹林). The first phase of the project would connect Wanhua and Jhonghe districts, with Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall and Chukuang (莒光) being the terminal stations. The two municipalities jointly hosted a ceremony for the first train to be used
MILITARY AID: Taiwan has received a first batch of US long-range tactical missiles ahead of schedule, with a second shipment expected to be delivered by 2026 The US’ early delivery of long-range tactical ballistic missiles to Taiwan last month carries political and strategic significance, a military source said yesterday. According to the Ministry of National Defense’s budget report, the batch of military hardware from the US, including 11 sets of M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and 64 MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile Systems, had been scheduled to be delivered to Taiwan between the end of this year and the beginning of next year. However, the first batch arrived last month, earlier than scheduled, with the second batch —18 sets of HIMARS, 20 MGM-140 missiles and 864 M30
Representative to the US Alexander Yui delivered a letter from the government to US president-elect Donald Trump during a meeting with a former Trump administration official, CNN reported yesterday. Yui on Thursday met with former US national security adviser Robert O’Brien over a private lunch in Salt Lake City, Utah, with US Representative Chris Stewart, the Web site of the US cable news channel reported, citing three sources familiar with the matter. “During that lunch the letter was passed along, and then shared with Trump, two of the sources said,” CNN said. O’Brien declined to comment on the lunch, as did the Taipei
A woman who allegedly attacked a high-school student with a utility knife, injuring his face, on a Taipei metro train late on Friday has been transferred to prosecutors, police said yesterday. The incident occurred near MRT Xinpu Station at about 10:17pm on a Bannan Line train headed toward Dingpu, New Taipei City police said. Before police arrived at the station to arrest the suspect, a woman surnamed Wang (王) who is in her early 40s, she had already been subdued by four male passengers, one of whom was an off-duty Taipei police officer, police said. The student, 17, who sustained a cut about
RSS