Taitung: Miramar Expanding Ring of Destruction Halted

Location of the Miramar (lower left) and new development (center to right)(from Taitung Protest)

The Miramar hotel development (background) has come to symbolize everything that is wrong with development on the east coast, which is rapidly being wrecked by developers. Today Taitung Protest posted on Facebook:

You’ve heard about Mei Li Wan, now they are trying to build Mei Li Two (then 3, 4, and so on, ‘until there’s no more room up there’) in the foothills of Dulan Mountain, just 100 metres north of Miramar.

A delegation of local environmental activists, led by leaders of the aboriginal communities surrounding the proposed development site for Shanyuan Palms Holiday Villas, protested on the steps of the EPA offices ahead of a meeting set for July 29.

The good news is that the EPA meeting ruled that all development must cease pending the institution of the new Coastal Protection Law!

That's great. And so it bloody well should.

If you thought Mei Li Wan (Miramar) was big, then get a load of this new monstrosity.
550 rooms – that’s up to 1000 people a day! Or 365 000 tour bus tourists per year (and their turds)

It will cover a total of 26 hectares! That’s roughly the size of 26 football fields and more than four times bigger than Miramar.

But get this; it’s proposed to be built on a hill known to be prone to landslides! It’s a disaster so obviously waiting to happen that it would border on wilful negligence if it was passed by the authorities.

So why the unseemly rush by the local Taidong council to do so? Coz a new, central government coastal protection law is on the books and set to be passed this year. This law overrides grubby local council deals and will flat-out prohibit such enormous, ecologically destructive developments.

And now, this July 29 EPA Ruling, which stops Shanyuan Palms Holiday Villas from proceeding, is, to my very pleasant surprise, a common sense decision that looks like it’s gonna nip this idiotic development in the bud.

Is the wheel finally turning?

Let's hope so. A pile of new hotels have been approved, and if you've been in downtown Taitung city, they sprout like mushrooms.
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