交通組碩二 夏明達 Mate Sebok
During the technical tour, we were visiting the Hsing Long Public House in Wenshan District, South Taipei City. The public houses in Taipei are built by the city government in order to provide high quality living conditions for those citizens who otherwise cannot afford to buy or even rent an apartment. The residents of these houses are mainly elderly people, individuals or families with low income or disabled people who have limited working opportunities. Thanks to the public houses they have chance to live in a very modern and high quality environment, which is a big change compared to the old public houses.
These public houses are also important in Taipei, where real estate prices are extremely high, compared to the average salaries and other living expenses. The average price of a home is around $600,000NTD per ping (3.3m2), which makes most of the houses unpayable for the low-income people.
The public houses are not a new phenomenon in Taipei, as the government had provided such apartments for the citizens in the past too. Nevertheless, most of those buildings were built in very poor conditions, with only minimum comfort level. Unlike the older apartment buildings, the new public houses and their surroundings have a very modern design, just like the expensive private building in Taiwan. These building are equipped with one of the most modern technologies, such as solar panels or electric vehicle chargers. For example, the building that we visited was designed with a garden on the rooftop, where the residents could grow vegetables or other plants for personal use. The solar panels are located on the rooftop and they are used to provide energy for the common equipment, like elevators, corridor and parking lot lightning. The energy efficiency of the building is monitored in a central control room. In order to ensure safety and security, the neighborhood is equipped with CCTV cameras, as well as with additional safety features, like the gas will automatically be turned off in case of an earthquake.
However, during the presentation it was mentioned that despite of the positive factors, there are also some critics over the public housing schemes. For example, some of the buildings were built in a very fast way with poor quality. Therefore, even though they looked new and modern in the beginning, the residents found several problems in the house, such as leakage.
The other problem is that the residents of the neighboring building most of the time are against the idea to build public housing next to them. They are afraid that the lower income residents in these houses will negatively affect the property prices and the safety level of the given area. This may result that the public houses are built in outlying areas or less developed districts, which can negatively affect the low income or elderly residents’ mobility or job opportunities.
Finally, it was mentioned that the public housings are not always well integrated with the transportation system. For example, the Hsing Long public housing is located far from the metro lines or the major bus routes. It may be a problem for those low income or older people, who have no private cars or scooters, and need to work in the city center or other parts of the city. It was also interesting for me to see that there was an electric vehicle charger, but it is less likely that the residents here can afford to buy electric scooters or cars. Maybe the government should consider to provide some electric vehicles for common use or for rent. In this case, they could approve the transportation opportunities of the residents, and at the same time would make a good use out of the charger facilities as well.
Personally, I feel that the public housing scheme is a very good idea, and I am sure it helps a lot for those citizens who otherwise would have no chance to live in such a comfortable environment. However, the government should pay more attention to try to avoid the above-mentioned problems in the future in order to get the best result out of this social program.
土木四 陳柏劭
在地狹人稠的新加坡，小小的七百平方公里住著五百多萬人口，然而他們卻擁有世界最高的住宅自有率，有將近八成的國民住在公有住宅中。在華人的思想中，擁有一個安身立命的居所一直是國家的一股穩定力量，讓年輕人敢成家立業，敢勇敢追夢，而無後顧之憂。
從興隆集合住宅俯瞰，群山環繞，算是台北市內少數保有較多綠地的地方
台灣的住宅政策在 1999 年停建國宅後，已有許久沒有再推出新的國宅或是公共住宅，直到 2011 年政府宣布重新啟動公共出租住宅，才從新開始興建及規劃。在 2014 年提出四年兩萬戶、八年五萬戶的計畫，希望透過多元的住宅政策，提供適量的社會住宅，也順勢擴大民間租 屋市場，不僅讓社會新鮮人有能力買房，也同時照顧弱勢家庭，實現居住正義。
這次參觀興隆集合住宅，確實讓人對於國宅有煥然一新的想法。這棟由潤泰集團營建的集合住宅，不僅外型新穎，比新加坡的國宅更漂亮，也是一棟綠建築與智慧宅，除了樓頂的公共菜圃與自設的水質偵測站，屋頂的太陽能電板足以供應兩棟樓的公共用電，且在地下室設有儲能設備，在日落後能繼續提供公共用電，而政府與營建商的用心從屋頂的曬磚 (避免日後更換時 產生色差) 到電梯內的空氣清淨設備這些細節都可以看出，此集合住宅具有相當的標竿性與象徵性，它代表著台北人對於未來住宅的想像與希望，而且便宜的月租金 (一房十坪大約六千元、三 房約一萬六千元) 正是年輕世代所能承擔的。雖然有些地方仍有改善空間，例如挑選公共住宅的基地時，是否可以找到交通更便利的閒置國有地，但整體而言，在多年以後看到台灣的國宅能有如此突破性的發展，依舊讓台灣的年輕世代甚至是社會的弱勢，看到了那麼一點希望，只企盼這項政策可以持續有效率的推展。
智慧電能管理系統 (由左至右:儲能設備、電能監控視窗、電動車充電座)
工管四 陳奕廷
This was a pretty interesting tour as we were able to visit one of the very few public houses in Taipei, or even in Taiwan. We started in a nice conference room, then the roof with good view, basement, and the building control room. It was really a well-managed building with very advanced technology.
There are only less than 1% of the houses are public house in Taiwan, comparing to 32% in Netherlands, the highest in the world, and 30% in Hong Kong, even Korea and Japan have the rate above 5%.
But how can it be such a big gap between Taiwan and the world? Of course policy could be a reason as Taiwan started to promote public house very late. But I think the culture could also be a reason as most Taiwanese people think owning a house is one of the most important things in one’s life, and this results in a house owning rate as high as 80%.
If the house price is low and everyone can afford buying a house then it shouldn’t be a problem though the public house rate is low, however the house price now in Taiwan is such high that 4 cities in Taiwan ranked top 10 in the world on the earning/house price rate list (The average household annual earning/average house price). The high house price could be result from someone speculating the price, but the low owning cost could also be a reason, for example you should only pay under 100 thousand NTD tax for owning a 20 million house because the tax base is not the market price.
To solve the problem, the government are now promoting the concept of public house, I think that along with the increasing owning cost and heavy inspection on outlaw renting the policy could be push forward more easily.
Also a good sample in operation could also be a real advertising for the policy as many people in Taiwan now think that only lower social-status people live in bad conditioned public house. Xinglong public house is a well-managed grand apartment with 24hr security, water quality sensing, intellectual electricity system, earthquake and fire safety system. There are even charging station for electric cars in the building. I cannot feel a bit that it’s the lower public-status people living in it, and it even looks better than any surrounding buildings. I hope that as there are more public houses go into operation the public can be more agree with it.
Note. Though the public house rent is discounted it’s still high as the original price is too high in Taipei. We can refer to the means in Paris that they rent certain proportion of public houses to different groups and with different rent based on their earnings.
Beautiful view from the roof
The overview of the power supply system with solar power supplying
交通組碩一 陳怡伶
有關行政院為推廣社會住宅落實居住正義，將規劃 8 年內興辦 20 萬戶社會住宅，讓買不起房的青年、中產階級、單親家庭、身心障礙者及老年人皆可擁有安心的居所，依老師於興隆公宅處，為同學簡述政府推動社會住宅之美意與邏輯， 我們都瞭解其實政府也希望能有番績效，為市民謀福利，其性質應屬善意之政策。
在參訪興隆公宅同時，我們瞭解到目前政府對於公共住宅建設之考量很多元，除妥善養護住宅之土木設施外，對於其餘軟性硬體設施部分，還包含太陽能供電與綠化、管線設施、電力維護、災防通報、緊急救援及瓦斯自動斷電等完善之軟性設施，並且具有完備之管理制度；其中對於設計太陽能自動供電予公共設施部分具有深度的設計，原本大家對太陽能發電的穩定度都存有疑問，然而透過參訪過程，親見其太陽能板透過儲電系統存放電力過程，甚至還可供應車輛充電，相信就小額供電部分，太陽能系統仍可被妥善好好運用並加以推廣；能實際參訪見識著實覺得非常開心。
依據臺北市政府所頒佈之「臺北市社會住宅出租辦法」，限定臺北市設有戶籍或就學、就業有居住需求；申請人、配偶、戶籍內之直系親屬及其配偶，均無自有住宅者或無承租本市國民住宅、公營住宅或社會住宅；家庭年收入低於公告受理申請當年度臺北市 40%分位點家庭之平均所得，且所得總額平均分配全家人口，平均每人每月不超過最低生活費標準之 3.5 倍者限制等；且該限制似乎每處有所不同。(如大龍峒公共住宅為 50％分位點以下-即 147 萬元以下）。
然而只要是針對任何住宅津貼補貼，其萬年不動的限制，就是限定申請人之直系親屬與配偶須無自有住宅且無承租過公宅；此部分個人認為臺北市政府並未進行通盤調查與檢視，仍侷限於弱勢族群，而該族群其實也有政府相關其他補貼措施，較不屬落實廣面之居住正義；倘如任何人只要直系擁有任何不動產，無論戶籍內有多少人，即便平均每年收入不超過 147 萬，仍舊無法具有申請資格；另外，以一般市價 85 折訂為基本租金，其用意雖說是主要是為公共住宅能得以妥善維護，而需以租金自償所施作之工程保養及管理經費等，既然針對申請者已有相關限制，仍以市價 85 折出租是否仍欠缺完整考量。
個人認為政府在設定相關限制的同時，也必須考慮欲出租的特定族群究竟為何，其社經背景與基本需求，因為依臺北市政府目前法規限制，仍無法滿足大眾的需求，且租金高居不下之情況下，真是難為獨立在外生活工作之台北市青年。