Department of Urban Development, Taipei City Government

It has been two years since the launch of urban design review and reform in April 2015. Deputy Mayor Charles Lin together with related Taipei City Government officers from Department of Urban Development, Taipei City Construction Management Office and Taipei City Urban Regeneration Office attended a “Taipei City Government 2-year Achievement in Urban Design Review and Reform System Symposium”, conducted by Taipei Architects Association and The Real Estate Development Association of Taipei. In the symposium, the representatives from Association affirmed the achievements of the reform. Deputy Mayor announced urban renewal review will take over the reform.
“You have to shave your beard before you can shave another’s beard” was taken as a metaphor by Deputy Mayor Lin. He announced the resolution of urban design review for Taipei City Government two years ago. He also expressed Taipei City Government should put the energy of urban design review to public field in order to control the quality of public property. Thus, urban design review and reform mainly convened project and maximum number of committee members review for private development and public sector individually. Its classified processing procedure can not only focus the key point to public construction but also speed up administrative review process. Urban design review and reform was launched officially in April 2015 and the legalization of procedure came into effect in September in the same year. In the past two years, there were two stages of reviews for public buildings, such as: Taipei City public housing, public land superficies registration and urban renewal, all levels were checked from the drafting of urban design criteria to the review of building design. Speeding up, simplifying and classifying the process procedures for private development cases. According to the statistics, the efficacy of administrative review increased by 50% after the implementation of urban design review and reform. Especially, the reforms, like: meeting minutes were confirmed on the spot, the majority of urban design review was implemented with certainty and the applications were revised according to resolution not to individual opinions, were affirmed and praised by the members of Association.
The chairman of the Real Estate Development Association, Chen, Tsun-tong expressed the urban design review and reform policy is refreshing. On shorten review process, 54% of good comment out of 1138 surveys, and 72% surveys give high opinion on the simplified meeting and resolutions provided on the same day. The developer found the efficiency is twice as much as it was. The review and reform in administration have been a significant achievement since Mayor Ko inaugurated. Taipei City Government has received positive feedback from industry in “facing the problem, solving the problem, discussing actively and speeding up the implementation of urban design review”. The convenor of supervision committee, Ma, Yu-san addressed the urban design review and reform is unprecedented. It gives a good example for the other counties and cities to follow. Executive Director, Chang, Liang-gi said he had an urban renewal case recently. After the process efficiently assessed, he had not yet found a reception center, the building permit was soon issued. He was very glad Taipei City Government puts the past behind and hoped the reform will focus on quality improvement in the future to create better designs. Director-General of Taipei Architects Association, Huang, Hsiu-chuang said, “I experienced the most in the past 30 years since the implementation of urban design review. I submitted the first case in Taipei then. The efficiency of urban design review and reform is significant and hope it can move on in the future. Our 2,316 members will spare no effort in supporting Taipei City Government.”
Deputy Mayor Lin indicated the meeting is mainly to review the 2-year urban design review and reform policy at the end of the meeting. Thanks to the positive feedback from the Associations, the constructive feedback will be taken back and keep on improving. Taipei will lead the reform of urban renewal review process. It is imperative to reform urban renewal under the trust of our society and the premise that government function should be in place. Taipei City Government will coordinate with private sectors to improve the efficiency of urban renewal in the future. We should open our mind, converse bravely, discuss openly and work together to improve the efficiency of urban design review and urban renewal island wide.