Have you ever visited the isle of Capri? And its world-famous Grotto Azuro? If you have, you know Capri was where Augustus Caesar spent the last years of his life as the first emperor of the Roman Empire. He built a great palace overlooking an inaccessibly perpendicular cliff on the small island in the Bay of Naples, from which he could sneak down by a secret passage to the Blue Cave to enjoy a dip in the seawaters. The mouth of the cave, open to the sea, is invisible during high tide and the grotto is lit blue by reflected sunlight. Why did the great emperor, who gave the eighth month of the Gregorian calendar his name, lead a hush-hush life? He had assassination phobia. Emperors and dictators used to have a similar abnormal fear. The first emperor of the Chin Dynasty, or Shi-huang-ti, even had hundreds of terracotta soldiers buried together with him for fear someone might try to assassinate him in his afterlife. Chiang Kai-shek had that phobia, too. But he and his son Chiang Ching-kuo, who was free of the pathological fear of assassins, did not stake out a large special district in Taipei for reasons of their personal security. Nor did Lee Teng-hui. Former President Chen Shui-bian, who is standing trial for corruption at the Taiwan high court, made sure no airplanes flew over what is called the Poai special district, perhaps because he was afraid China might send warplanes to strafe or bomb his offices and official residence.
Nobody believes President Ma Ying-jeou harbors any fear of assassins. Save his National Security Bureau bureaucrats. They are convinced that a tall building, located some 800 yards away from his official residence next door to the former Taiwan Tobacco and Wine Monopoly Bureau, threatens the personal security of their commander-in-chief. With a sniper's rifle, the brass hats theorize, an assassin from on high may pick off President Ma walking around the yard of his official home. The conclusion is obvious: Ipinwan (一品苑), the 23-story apartment estate, has to be reduced in height.
So last June, the top brass told the Taipei municipal government to think of a way to remove that security risk. City Hall came up with a great idea. It decided to expand the Poai special district to include President Ma's official residence, where any and all structures higher than 24 meters must have stories above that height torn down. All it took to do the job was to re-zone the area. The re-zoning was announced and a re-zoned map of the special district was published at the end of last month.
Developers are up in arms against the expansion of the special district. It covered a mere 45.45 hectares or 112 acres. The total area of the expanded district now is 234 hectares or 562 hectares, five times as large as it was. There are many other buildings exceeding the height limit. A few more are under construction. Builders, as well as owners, want compensation.
As a matter of fact, the re-zoning stirred up a hornet's nest. According to Ting Yu-chun, Taipei municipal director of urban development, developers will be compensated by transferring the floor space to be reduced from their taller structures to buildings they may erect in other parts of the city. That is easier said than done. Taipei has few choice areas where posh apartment complexes can be built. The county of Taipei, which will be converted into the special municipality of North City at the end of next year, has enough land for chic bed towns, but developers will have difficulty transforming the extra floor space into elegant apartments there. Guangdu may serve their purposes. The trouble, however, is that the Taipei municipal authorities have yet to plan for its development. Apartment owners will have a long nightmare. They have to move. To where? How much money will be given in compensation? One unofficial estimate places the cash compensation to developers and apartment owners at well over NT$100 billion (US$31 billion). We wonder whether the government of the capital city can afford it. Under fire at the city council, mayor of Taipei Hau Lung-bin said on Tuesday he is doing as was told.“We are handling the matter in coordination with the central government,”he told angry city councilors.“Whether it (the expansion of the special district) is reasonable or not cannot be assessed,”he pointed out.
That is not quite true, President Ma's spokesman Tony Wang retorted. He said the Office of the President officially asked the city government in writing the middle of August to “reasonably regulate the height of all structures in the vicinity of the Office of the President and the official residence of the President.”Wang denied that the Office of the President ordered the expansion of the Poai district. But Ma's spokesman admitted the city government was asked not to“harm the interests”of developers by allowing them to transfer the excess floor space elsewhere. He did not say the reduction by at least 15 stories of the Ipinwan apartment estate was required by the National Security Bureau.
Well, Chang Kan-ping, deputy commander of the National Security Bureau's special service center, apologized yesterday for failure to explain the importance of President Ma's security needs. Wang also said nobody has ever insisted that the top 15 stories of the Ipinwan estate be dismantled.
What has happened is much ado about nothing.
（本文刊載於98.10.01 The China Post 8版，本文代表作者個人意見）
王皓平
王順民
漢寶德
劉新圓
