Ministry of Interior Visits Taipei City Government Regarding Soil Disposal, Hopes for Continued Inventory of Public Land for Temporary Storage

Central News Agency

(CNA Reporter Kao Hua-chien, Taipei, 22nd) Deputy Minister of the Interior Dong Jian-hong visited the Taipei City Government today regarding the issue of soil disposal. He stated that the central government has already inventoried temporary soil storage sites such as Taipei Port. Since vacant land in Taipei is limited and it is difficult for private projects to find alternative disposal sites on their own, he requested the city government to continue taking inventory of public land resources to provide temporary storage assistance.

The Ministry of the Interior stated in a press release that Dong Jian-hong led a delegation, including Deputy Chief Engineer of the National Land Management Agency Bu Yong-fu, to visit the Taipei City Government today. Deputy Mayor Zhang Wen-de attended on behalf of Taipei City. The two sides exchanged policy views and discussed issues such as the processing and receiving prices of construction surplus soil in Taipei, promoting urban renewal and reconstruction of unsafe buildings, and major urban development cases.

Dong Jian-hong said that the Taipei City Government is actively cooperating with the central government's soil disposal measures. Soil from projects that meet public interest criteria or align with national development policies can be transported to Taipei Port for disposal. Furthermore, starting April 10, the threshold for transporting soil to Taipei Port was lowered to 20,000 cubic meters. Additionally, regarding recent feedback from businesses that changing construction surplus soil processing plans only involves altering the receiving site, he suggested this could be handled through a simplified modification process. He also requested the city government to deploy sufficient dedicated personnel to accelerate related procedures and improve overall administrative efficiency.

Dong pointed out that the central government has already identified temporary soil storage sites at Taipei Port, Changhua Coastal Industrial Park, and Qigu in Tainan to meet temporary storage needs and ensure the execution of livelihood projects is not affected. Also, because vacant land in Taipei is limited, making it genuinely difficult for private projects to find alternative disposal sites, he asked the city government to continue checking public land resources to provide temporary storage aid.

Furthermore, regarding the surging costs of soil processing, Dong asked the city government to continue monitoring and initiating inspections. If a soil processing facility is found with concrete evidence of illegal activity, it will be handed over to the Fair Trade Commission for investigation and penalized under the Fair Trade Act, thereby maintaining normal market operation order and public interest.

Dong expressed hope that when the city government promotes urban renewal and unsafe building reconstruction, it will guide private engineering executing units to implement sorting during building demolition, incorporate green design principles in the reconstruction planning stage, and use a certain proportion of recycled aggregates to build a circular economy system.

The Ministry of the Interior added that the Taipei City Government also expressed its willingness to actively cooperate with the central government to ensure source reduction and sorting in various projects, so that domestic soil disposal, flow management, and urban development can all operate in an orderly manner. (Editor: Zhai Si-jia) 1150422