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Economic Daily News: Affordable housing quandary
2010/02/09 11:07:26 |
Skyrocketing property prices, particularly those for upscale residential properties, have fueled anger and complaints from average citizens, many of whom have either lost their jobs or seen their incomes decline as a result of the muddling economy over the past several years.
The government has therefore come up with an idea to build inexpensive residential units for young home buyers, who cannot even afford a small bathroom in high-priced luxury apartments that are now selling for over NT$100 million (US$3 million) apiece.
The government has also mulled imposing a "luxury home tax" in a bid to calm the average person's dissatisfaction, promote tax fairness and halt speculative rises in property prices.
The "luxury home tax" notion, however, has not contributed to slowing the rise of property prices but instead helped shore up the prices of those upscale residences.
Since imposing a "luxury home tax" is not a good way to fight property price fluctuations, why not emulate Shanghai in developing idle land or backwater areas into new business zones or follow Singapore in developing new towns with affordable housing units for the ordinary person.
Premier Wu Den-yih proposed recently that some 10,000 inexpensive housing units be built in a Taipei suburb located about 20 minutes outside of Taipei but near an MRT stop to help families who cannot afford a house in Taipei buy their own home.
The premier's proposal is laudable, but we urge him to learn the lessons from the low-cost public housing projects built in the past for low-income families or military dependents. They developed bad reputations because of shabby design and poor construction quality, and the government should try to prevent repeating the mistakes of the past. (Feb. 9, 2010)
(By Deborah Kuo)
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