Environmental advocates yesterday urged the National Land Management Agency not to approve a previously suspended solar farm construction project in Kaohsiung’s Dashu District (大樹) until the developer restores a destroyed hillside, as required by law.
They also called for the preservation of protected land and conservation areas that could be converted for development use under proposed changes.
The agency’s regional planning committee yesterday convened a meeting to review proposed changes to the project’s development plan.
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The project includes more than 50 hectares of land in the district’s Heshan Borough (和山), which is owned by Taiwan Water Corp (台水) and leased to Smart Family Co (聰明的家) for solar farm development.
The project’s second phase of construction was terminated and its solar facility construction permit was last year revoked by the Ministry of Economic Affairs after the developer illegally cleared slopeland for solar farm development.
The modified development plan aims to convert 3.7 hectares of protected land and conservation areas to land used for special-purpose development while adding two hectares of hillside land for building solar facilities, Forest City Association, Taiwan chairman Chuang Chieh-jen (莊傑任) said.
Once the protected land is rezoned for special use, not only solar farms, but also waste or construction surplus soil disposal facilities and factories could be built there, he said.
That could contaminate drinking water and cause safety concerns for the borough’s more than 1,000 residents, Chuang said.
The developer should have hosted information sessions to brief local residents on the modifications and hear their opinions, he said.
Remaining construction should be suspended, given the development’s environmental impact, including how the solar panels would affect the hillside landscape, Association of Taiwan Tree-Huggers secretary-general Pan Han-chiang (潘翰疆) said.
He also expressed concerns over whether the developer had sought advice from the Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency on the proposed change in land use.
In response, the land management agency’s Spatial Planning Division yesterday said that the developer submitted modifications of the development plan in accordance with regulations.
Soil and water conservation construction approval for the project’s phase two zone and part of its phase one zone has been revoked by the Kaohsiung City Government, the division said.
However, the rest of the phase one zone still qualified for development, requiring the developer to modify the overall development plan and send it to the committee for review, it said.
While the changes to the project yesterday failed to pass committee review due to concerns about soil and water conservation, a project team consisting of committee members and experts would be formed to address the issue, it said.
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