Mayor’s remarks:
I. Each unit must advocate the policies during the City Council’s regular interpellation meetings
1. The fourth regular meeting of the second session of Tainan City Council began recently, and the municipal administrative interpellation is underway. The government’s chief officers and I have attended the meetings to answer interpellation according to the law, accepting the supervision of public opinion.
2. Since the start of the meetings, councilors have given constructive criticisms regarding various public issues. I hope that during the interpellation, each unit can humbly accept the suggestions and review the policies to find room for improvement, striving to pursue the people’s greater happiness. However, if there is any case of deliberate denial of the team’s efforts or even malicious distortions of the facts, we should clarify the facts when it is appropriate to prevent circulating rumors, or it would not only be unfair to the government team but also irresponsible to the citizens.
3. This is the sixth year after the merger of the city and county, and we have gradually started many major constructions. I expect that there will be more interpellations and discussions in the future, so I hope that each unit can carefully examine their services and fully communicate during the interpellations, showing the plans and achievements of municipal constructions.
II. About the reconstruction after the 0206 earthquake
Time flies, and it has been almost one year after the 0206 earthquake. The 0206 earthquake had a great impact on Tainan City. Unfortunately, 177 citizens died, many were hurt and more than 1,000 houses were affected. Many cities sent rescue teams at a moment’s notice, and generous donations came from all parts of the society, with more than 430 thousand donations, which summed up to more than 4 billion NT dollars. I am grateful for the help of the cities and the society, and I have made formal visits to temples in each city to thank them for their generous donations and the mayors, policemen, firemen and citizens for their assistance. Also, I use this opportunity to explain that I have made formal visits to the temples in Tainan in the past few years, but I will once more visit the temples which have donated to give my sincere thanks. As for the health examination of old houses, the first stage of application was from April 1st to June 30th, and the second stage, from July 1st to October 30th. There were 241 applications in total, in which 91—62 buildings and 29 houses—have finished evaluation reports. The reports have been sent to the applicants, and we are continuing the evaluation. As for areas with the problem of soil liquefaction, housing damage subsidies have been issued to 780 households, and 36 buildings, with 341 households, have been righted or have undergone geological improvement after negotiation. Nineteen public facilities in Annan District, West Central District, Sinshih District and North District have been improved. I hereby use this opportunity to report to the citizens, and the government team will continue to work on the reconstruction.
Reports
I. The Urban Development Bureau reports the project of the “Overall Planning and Construction Results of the Land of Not Rebuilt Military Villages in Tainan City”. (see the written report)
Resolution: approved for reference filing
Deputy Mayor’s comments:
(1) Due to urban development, some old buildings have gradually become unable to satisfy the needs of today. Therefore, urban renewal is needed to inject vitality into the city, reshape the urban space, improve the quality of residence life, revitalize urban functions and increase public interest, which are the main purposes of promoting urban renewal.
(2) Tainan has lower real estate prices than northern Taiwan and can get available land of construction more easily. But in comparison, there are less economic incentives for private sectors to apply for urban renewal. They are often inclined to find new lands available for construction and have little desire to apply for urban renewal and reconstruction in situ. Therefore, the urban renewal applications that the government has received mainly consist of site maintenance via facelift and land renewal projects of military villages led by public sectors.
(3) I hereby remind the Urban Development Bureau to understand the public interest that urban renewal led by public sectors possesses. It can improve the quality of urban living environment, and through developing public facilities, it can promote urban regeneration and development. At the same time, from the perspective of the overall urban development, the Urban Development Bureau should put appropriate restrictions on the development scale by setting the maximum floor area ratio preference to avoid the situation of insufficient land capacity of external public facilities.
(4) I thank Director-general Wu of the Urban Development Bureau and his team for their hard work. Besides planning the urban renewal cases, they also master the situation of Tainan’s development. I hope that through establishing urban renewal policies, we can transform and revitalize the city.
II. The Environmental Protection Bureau reports the “Implementation Status of a Low-carbon Sustainable City and Future Coping Strategies”. (see the written report)
Resolution: approved for reference filing
Mayor’s comments:
(1) The Paris Agreement, symbolizing the Earth’s turning point, went into effect on November 4th, 2016. As a member of the global village, Taiwan should definitely take the responsibility of reducing carbon emissions together with other countries. In COP22, recently held in Morocco, the representatives of the countries announced a joint action statement which demanded that the countries work together to reduce emissions and face the global warming crisis.
(2) In the “Greenhouse Gas Reduction and Management Act”, the central government stipulated that the long-term goal was to “reduce the carbon emission in 2050 to 50% of that in 2005”, and the Executive Yuan is actively proposing the first five-year period reduction goal and action plan. From Director-general Lee’s report, we know that the action plans of carbon emission control proposed by the departments and offices include six aspects—energy, production, transportation, residence and business, agriculture and environment. They have proposed 17 promoting items, 62 promoting sub-items and 212 promoting methods, which are carried out by 11 organizing and co-organizing offices. I ask related departments and bureaus to grasp the promoting methods of each office.
(3) Over the last five years, in promoting the low-carbon city construction project, the city’s CO2e emissions has been reduced by 5.54 million metric tons, which is 19.5%. We have exceeded the scheduled reduction goal, showing that our low-carbon strategy is effective. I thank the departments and bureaus for their hard work. The Environmental Protection Bureau has proposed the city’s new carbon reduction goal, which is the first five-year period reduction goal—“cut carbon emissions to 12 percent below 2005 levels by 2020”. I hope that we can continue to work on improving the low-carbon plans and do a rolling review of the low-carbon strategies to catch up global trends and connect with the world.
(4) I ask the departments and bureaus to work on the basis of the 86 promoting items of Tainan’s low-carbon city construction project and the 212 promoting methods of the central government, and file, examine and audit, and add new items. After each promoting method is confirmed, I ask the secretary-general to hold a cross-office task force meeting to confirm each action plan, evaluate carbon reduction results and funding, and after the confirmation of the municipal administrative meeting, report to the central governing authority for approval.
(5) Because our hard work has been acknowledged by the central government, I hope that each department and bureau can closely cooperate with the central government so that related low-carbon facilities can be introduced to the two major constructions—the Shalun Green Energy Science Park and the international film studios—in the planning stage, making them the model of the low-carbon green energy demonstration area.