Graduate Institute of Building and Planning, National Taiwan University

  In August 2010, residents received lawyers’ letters from NTU. Residents were requested to demolish or vacate the housing and return occupied university grounds within 60 days, otherwise NTU shall claim compensation for demolishment and return of property. As the residents were never informed that the properties were under the management of NTU, in shocked response, the Shaoxing Community Self-Help Association (now Shaoxing Community Advancement Association) was formed. Its purpose was to seek assistance from NTU, government departments, elected representatives and Control Yuan. It was only until the demonstration at the 2012 NTU Anniversary, organized by the Shaoxing Program formed by the graduate school of the NTU Department of Sociology and NTUBP, in which thousands of students participated and Shaoxing residents took part in a hunger strike that NTU agreed to dialogue and negotiations with the Shaoxing community.

         NTUBP used the promotion of Blue Magpie TEAgriculture as an implementation of the power of society. They became the help and support of the tea farmers throughout the seasons by learning about the tradition of tea production and caring for the tea plantation, and consequently, participated authentically in the conservation of local Taiwanese rural culture and landscape.            What we do: Conservation of the cultural environment of “tea”.  The border of wilderness and civilization can be called the “mountain next to our home” or “Satoyama”.  The foothills surrounding a city is sometimes also called rural mountain. It is usually situated between a conservation area and civilization, like the relation between the greater Taipei region and Dapinglin. Such locations often have to undergo the awkward deliberation on whether it should be developed and how it should be protected. This time, the NTUBP collaborated with the Dapinglin tea farmers to form a new rural association. By using both agricultural production and environmental conservation methods, while continuing in the spirit of experimentation, explored the issues that Taiwan should face and resulted in the launch of Blue Magpie TEAgriculture. Since 2011, the Blue Magpie TEAgriculture was created through collaboration in tea country Pinglin, using the concepts of the “Satoyama Initiative”. It is an attempt to find a balance between human beings and nature to find a new path to “biodiversity and equilibrium”.  After all, “tea” is a part of Taiwan’s cultural landscape. So the production methods of tea are what motivate the participation of Taiwan’s foothill communities.  We uphold four principles in our Blue Magpie tea farms: 1. It must be environmentally farming according to the local climate and landscape, with no pesticide use. 2. The pre-existing tea farms cannot expand in size. 3. Business partnerships should adopt per “area”. 4. With regards to land and water maintenance, vegetation must be strengthened and the incline of the slopes must be according to legal regulations.  

      Housing is a basic human right, a necessity, and a major concern in the process of social development. Left-leaning urban sociologists define housing, education, medical care and transportation as the four urban-oriented collective consumption behaviors that should be protected by the government. Housing policy also lies at the center of social welfare schemes in relatively developed regions.        Skyrocketing residential property prices in August 1989 triggered the Shell-less Snail Movement, a milestone in the history of Taiwan social movements. The Shell-less Snails made their name as nearly 50,000 people offended by rising housing prices were mobilized by the Houseless Persons’ Union (HPU) to spend a night sleeping on section 4 of Zhongxiao East Road in Taipei City, the country’s most expensive stretch of land. By devoting themselves to the Shell-less Snails, the faculty and students of the Graduate Institute of Building and Planning, National Taiwan University (NTU-GIBP) became the core members of HPU. In an attempt to bolster the campaign’s momentum, the Organization of Urban Reforms (OURs) and Tsuei Ma Ma Property Rental Services, the predecessor of the Tsuei Ma Ma Foundation for Housing and Community Services, emerged in 1989 as HPU spin-offs and then continued to fight for social injustice at home even after their parent organization had accomplished some short-term goals and became inactive. They managed to keep the HPU cause alive thanks to NTU-GIBP’s all-out efforts.     1989 Shell-less Snail Movement,Zhongxiao East Road        The construction and urban planning professionals at OURs share four organizational goals: introducing urban policies and monitoring implementation progress; keeping track of urban and neighborhood development issues; offering help to underprivileged environmental activists; and promotion of education and awareness. The Tsuei Ma Ma Foundation for Housing and Community Services, on the other hand, is a long-time provider of housing-related services such as rental brokerage, housing assistance for troubled families, recommending reliable household removal services, and community empowerment. OURs and Tsuei Ma Ma tried to address the two core housing justice issues, residential property prices and housing policy reforms, but things hardly changed in the two decades between 1989 and 2009.        Housing issues for young city-dwellers and the disadvantaged are exacerbated by the fact that Taiwan residential property costs in 2009 far exceeded the 1989 level, complicated by declining wages and an ever-widening wealth gap. To ameliorate the housing issue that has long stayed atop the list of northern Taiwan residents’ top 10 grievances, OURs and Tsuei Ma Ma jointly formed the Social Housing Advocacy Consortium with 12 NGOs — the Eden Social Welfare Foundation, Garden of Hope Foundation, League of Welfare Organizations for the Disabled, Taiwan Labor Front, etc. — in the run-up to the 2010 mayoral/magistrate elections, calling on the government to provide not-for-sale rental housing. Not only was the consortium’s cause supported by the central government and all four sets of mayoral candidates (KMT and DPP) in Greater Taipei, the region hit the hardest by housing prices, it also kick-started an ongoing effort to provide social housing. In 2011, KMT presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou was mired in a surprisingly close race with his DPP counterpart, Tsai Ing-wen, and sought to sway middle-of-the-road voters. As the incumbent, he bowed to pressure from the Social Housing Advocacy Consortium in April 2011 and, with election day just months away, signed into law the Luxury Tax Act to discourage real estate swing trading. The Housing Act was also rushed through the legislature before its December 2011 recess, along with amendments to the Real Estate Broking Management Act, Land Administration Agent Act, and Equalization of Land Rights Act, commonly referred to as the “three acts of Actual Price Registration ” and playing a crucial role in property information disclosure. The consortium’s efforts over the last four years are starting to bear fruit as political heavyweights nationwide have become increasingly concerned with social housing policies. For instance, 28 mayoral/county magistrate candidates from 16 administrative districts mentioned social housing in their 2014 campaign platforms, with the six largest cities’ 12 sets of candidates all responding positively to the consortium’s demands, while only Greater Taipei candidates responded in 2010.     2014 Nest Movement participants slept on Ren-ai Road       When people’s sense of grievance intensified in 2014 as housing prices, their top concern, continued to trend upwards, OURs launched a next-generation housing justice campaign called “Nest Movement” in association with Tsuei Ma Ma, the Social Housing Advocacy Consortium, 101 NGOs and student activists. As part of the “Occupy the Palace on Oct. 4” initiative, Nest Movement participants slept on Ren-ai Road the day before World Habitat Day 2014 and voiced five demands: constitutionalization of the right to housing and banning of forced demolition and relocation, increased social housing projects, implemention of property tax reforms, expansion of the rental housing market while introducing rental regulations, and re-examining public land-related regulations and suspending Affordable Housing projects. Having successfully raised the awareness of the public and politicians of the right to housing, the “Nest Movement” plans to address property tax reforms, Housing Act amendments, and rental housing policies or regulations in a renewed 2015 campaign, capitalizing on the political opportunity presented by the presidential election.        Generally speaking, efforts in the first two decades of Taiwan’s 25-year pursuit of housing justice bore little fruit until 2010, when policy changes proved noticeably effective. However, property tax reforms combined with financial and credit controls are required to solve the critical issue: housing affordability. Although both the Kuomintang and the DPP avoid taking serious housing price control action that would deal a blow to entrenched interests as well as voters’ sources of income, the good news is that fierce partisan conflict and rotation of the ruling parties has forced Taiwanese politicians to listen more closely to demands of constituents. This explains why elections for local government heads and for the president, taking place once every four years, are the only political opportunities for right-to-housing activists to push for policy reform, of which property tax reform is a long and winding road because it strikes at the heart of capitalism by ensuring affordable housing. Only through keeping track of societal changes over the long run can resource-strapped NGOs bring about change and improvement.   It is exactly because facilitating reasonable housing is a daunting, time-consuming task that everyone at NTU-GIBP needs to pass on the baton to generations to come.   “Public housing reform isn’t over, so keep on trying, my friends at NTU-GIBP!”(By Lu Bing-yi ,Tsuei Ma Ma Property Rental Services )