Taipei Times
Date: Jan 01, 2017
By: Sean Lin / Staff reporter

Authorities should not use the land they expropriated under the Mass Rapid Transit Act (大眾捷運法) to build housing projects, the Council of Grand Justices said on Friday in a constitutional interpretation on the scandal-plagued MeHAS City Project (美河市) on the Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) System’s Songshan-Xindian line.

“The land that authorities expropriated in accordance with Article 6 of the act for construction projects to build mass rapid transportation systems should not be used for joint development housing projects, which are governed by Article 7-1 of the act,” Judicial Yuan Secretary-General Lu Tai-lang (呂太郎) told a news conference in Taipei, quoting the interpretation.

“The Taipei City Government should not have based land expropriation on Article 6 and Article 7-1 simultaneously. If it wanted to initiate joint development projects, it should have proposed another plan, instead of pursuing commercial gains under the guise of serving the public interest,” Lu said.

The Taipei City Government in 1991 expropriated 239 plots of land in Sindian (新店) to build the Xindian Depot close to Xiaobitan MRT Station to house machinery.    [FULL  STORY]