Shen Boyang, the Taipei mayoral candidate of the Democratic Progressive Party, recently launched the "unlimited house replacement" policy, sparking heated discussions on the issue of inter-district house swaps.
Taipei mayoral candidate Shen Boyang proposed "unlimited city updates" 10,000 days ago, sparking discussions from all walks of life. Lianyun Construction General Manager Cai Hanlin pointed out three points that people easily misunderstood regarding the literal description of "unlimited city updates."
Misunderstanding 1: "Inter-district housing exchange" means moving people into exile in remote areas?
Cai Hanlin said that what is actually being crossed is "regulations and construction permits", not just throwing people away to other counties and cities. Under the current "Total Regulations", all rights changes are locked in "a single base, a single construction license." Even if a new building has just been built next door and there are vacant houses, if the residents of the old house want to move in, they cannot do so due to regulations and will face extremely high land value-added tax and deed tax.
The true meaning of "cross-district" is to break down the property rights walls between different renewal plans and conduct nearby placement and matching within the "same living circle".
Misunderstanding 2: If a case has been going on for more than ten years, won’t the government be stuck collecting a bunch of mess?
Cai Hanlin said that the government’s intervention point is before and after the demolition starts, and the risk period is only during the construction period.
Traditional self-management often takes more than ten years, and most of the time is stuck in "early integration, mutual suspicion and administrative litigation."
The exchange time point of Wudu Geng is to conduct asset matching when it is determined that disputes have been eliminated and demolition is about to begin. In other words, the government is not going to take over the piecemeal and stuck land in advance, but will be responsible for the 4 to 5-year construction period from "start to completion".
More importantly, urban advancement is an "assembly-line" process: after completion of site A, go to site B, and after completion of site B, go to site C, instead of waiting for a single project to be completed before looking for the next base.
Misunderstanding 3: Will changing houses across districts deprive residents of their right to “stay where they are”?
Cai Hanlin said that this is an "additional voluntary option" and is by no means forced eviction. "Transformation of original site rights" under the current legal system is a basic human right. Those who want to stay in the original site for reconstruction and redistribution will not have their legal rights affected.
But many times, some elders cannot afford to wait for the five-year construction period, or they are too old to bear the hassle of moving twice. At this time, "one more exchange option" is to give families who are in urgent need of elevators and houses a dignified way to survive.
Cai Hanlin believes that the most difficult thing in the Internet is not arithmetic, but "trust and companionship." The most common obstacle in the Internet is often not legal provisions, but long-term information asymmetry and distrust. Residents are afraid of being cheated by builders, afraid of not being able to rent a house, and afraid of spending the rest of their lives wandering.
To promote this type of innovative model, it is necessary to have neutral and impartial valuation and institutional supervision to ensure transparent and equitable value exchange; warm and long-term companionship, and sincerely face the fear of the elders and the disadvantaged about "moving away from the familiar environment."
