http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1389-0551
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ABSTRACT
On 18 December 2015, the spatial planning bill was finally passed by the Legislative Yuan in Taiwan. That was a special moment for planning community and authority since they had anticipated this moment for more than two decades. However, this is not the end of the story. On the contrary, the battle between the economic development promoters and environmental conservation supporters just starts. The Act introduces several new changes to secure its goal of nationwide sustainable development, but the introduction also raises some tensions. This article reviews the tensions and their socio-political context, and gives some suggestions to the Taiwanese government.
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank Professor Vincent Nadin and Professor Tsulung Chou for their insightful suggestions.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. By 2015, there are 775,258 farm households and 2,698,000 farmers, while there are 8,427,842 households and 23,346,728 persons in Taiwan. Overall, 87% of the farm households own all of their cultivated land. The average farm size is 1.02 ha per household and 81.79% of the farm household’s farm size is less than one hectare (COA, Citation2017).
2. Since 2001, the national government has authorized local government to review the change of non-urban land use if the area size of the project is smaller than 10 hectares. In 2009, the authorized size has been extended to 30 hectares.
3. According to the most recent list of National Spatial Planning Committee members in 2018, there is one more member representing civil groups comparing to the list in 2017 (see https://www.cpami.gov.tw/審議委員會/內政部國土計畫審議會/28607-106年度「國土計畫審議會」委員名單.html; accessed 15 January 2018). It shows a very limited improvement in response to the suggestion of Ken-cheng Lee.