|
Draft act on land caters only to big
business
By Liao Pen-chuan 廖本全
Tuesday, Apr 13, 2010, Page 8
The draft statute to promote innovative industries that has been hotly debated
lately is essentially an extension of the tax incentives and industrial park
development plan of the now-invalidated Statute for Upgrading Industry
(促進產業升級條例). In addition to revenue losses due to the government’s constant
submission to corporations, Article 10 of the draft statute, which deals with
the establishment of industrial parks, is even more worrying. The article is
basically an extension of Article 5 of the Statute for Upgrading Industry, which
dealt with the establishment of industrial districts. If passed, the draft
statute will create four major changes to the application process for setting up
industrial parks.
First, anyone will be able to apply to set up an industrial park, be they
central or local governments or a private individual. Second, the draft statute
places no restrictions on land use. Applicants would be able to do as they
please, including activities such as building banks and reclaiming land,
practically creating their own kingdom. Third, the draft bypasses regulations in
other laws such as the Land Act (土地法), Regional Planning Act (區域計畫法),
Environmental Impact Assessment Act (環境影響評估法), National Property Act (國有財產法) and
the act on handling public property. Lastly, the draft allows for the
expropriation of private land and the sale of state-owned land.
Furthermore, the government ignores the high ratio of unused land, low occupancy
rates and low plot ratios in existing industrial and science parks and refuses
to consider how to make better use of this already-developed land. Instead, the
government wastes land and resources by unnecessarily setting up new parks using
large plots which will eventually take over all state-owned land.
It is very contradictory, then, that a draft of the National Land Plan is
scheduled for review during the current legislative session. The principles and
guidelines for national land plans are based on functional land zoning to
provide a basis for the management and direction for the land’s proper use and
conservation.
The government is thus planning a land plan law to protect land while, on the
other hand, using the draft statute for industries to allow applicants to use
industrial parks and state-owned land any way they want, essentially turning the
former into a joke.
The draft statute allows those applying to set up industrial parks to take over
agricultural and coastal land. Furthermore, problems with planning will continue
to get worse under this draft and jeopardize attempts to secure land for
agriculture, and safeguard our marine environment.
Local governments will also be given more power, making land speculation and the
expropriation of large swathes of private land more certain. It is hard to say
how much rural land would be expropriated, how rural society would disintegrate,
how many farmers would lose their homes and how much land would become idle from
this.
Finally, the draft statute highlights two major issues — the Statute for
Upgrading Industry made the government serve big business for a long time. Even
worse, after being in Taiwan for decades, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)
government still only serves this group and uses land resources and local
factions to establish collaborative relationships with industries, refusing to
be humble and identify with Taiwan.
The draft statute to promote innovative industries will have a severe impact and
we cannot afford to sit around. We must stand up and take action together.
Liao Pen-chuan is an associate professor in the department of
real estate and built environment at National Taipei University.
|
