STUDY ON THE EXECUTION PROCESS AND THE FACT OF URBAN RENEWAL IN TAIPEI CITY

Focus on the characteristics of different range and method based on practical completed cases analysis

Abstract

 This study focuses on the “urban renewal” in Taipei city, Taiwan. Urban renewal system in Taiwan is similar to the system of Japan. However, it has been utilized for the recovery after the 1999 Jiji earthquake (also called 921 earthquake). After then, the urban renewal system in Taiwan, especially Taipei has developed and evolved hugely. However, most of the previous researches about the system in Taiwan focus on the cases of recovery of Jiji earthquake.
 In this study, we first summarize and make clear the project execution process of urban renewal in Taipei city based on interview and literature review. We classify urban renewal projects into “Urban renewal Area” and “Urban renewal Unit” by their range and “Rights Transformation” and “Joint Construction Agreement” by the project execution method. What’s more, the “Right Transfer” type can be further classified into 2 types by whether submitting the “Right Transfer Plan” or not. In order to realize the characteristic of each type of them, we pick up 70 practical completed projects.
 We discovered that “Urban renewal Area” project takes relatively long period although they have higher ratio of agreement; besides, the bonus floor area is also higher. “Urban renewal Unit” takes shorter time and the rate of increase of the property right is higher. “Joint Construction Agreement Method” has extremely high rate of agreement so it takes short period. Beside, the distribution rate is high since these projects are leaded by land owners. On the other hand, “right transfer” takes long time but the rate of increase of the property right is higher.
 We also pointed out some issues including:
 (1) Although the 50% of designated floor area ratio is established as the limit of bonus floor area, other kind of bonus floor area institution could be utilized in the same time. So in most cases the total bonus floor area is nearly 50% and some cases are over the limit as a consequence.
 (2) Due to the abundant bonus floor area, all these urban renewal projects are rebuilt as high-rise building. This might cause the over-supply of property market and will also break the balance of local community and landscape.
 (3) What’s more, since the resettlement ratio of existing resident is totally low and the property value of these new building is too expensive, it’s considered that “gentrification” might occur and some strategy will be needed.
 Finally, the limitation of this study is that due to the amount of completed projects of “urban unit” type is not enough now. It is essential to pick up single case to analyze the concrete characteristic of “urban unit” type.