Taipei Times
Date: Mar 15, 2018
By: Lee I-chia  /  Staff reporter

Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was yesterday morning confronted by members of environmental groups and residents asking him to deal with a controversial land development case as he arrived for a meeting in Taipei’s Shilin District (士林).

The group held up a poster with pictures of former Taipei mayors Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌), as well as Ko, with sarcastic text that read: “The lands in Taipei can be easily dug up” and asking: “Is the city government going to legalize existing illegal development projects?”

Green Consumers’ Foundation chairman Jay Fang (方儉) said city government officials who neglected their duties when dealing with a construction project in a 53.82 hectare hillside urban redevelopment zone near the district’s Jingshan Road should be punished.

The zone was originally a hillside protection zone that was rezoned as residential in 1979. A development project in the zone had gained conditional approval after an environmental impact assessment in 1996, but several illegal construction projects were found in the area a few years later.   [FULL  STORY]