Taipei universities face dormitory beds crisis

A preliminary survey showed that public and private university dormitories in Taipei are short of 14,772 beds, the Taipei City Government said last week, adding that it plans to use government-owned buildings to supply 4,223 beds over the next five years, writes Lee I-chia for Taipei Times.

The announcement was made after the Taipei Department of Urban Development said that the Da Chiun Building – which is owned by the family of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) New Taipei City mayoral candidate Hou You-yi and is used by Chinese Culture University as a dorm – does not meet local zoning laws. Taipei Deputy Mayor Charles Lin said the shortage of students’ dorms is not limited to Chinese Culture University, and the Ministry of Education’s preliminary survey showed a shortage of 14,772 beds at the 26 universities in Taipei, and that seven universities have a supply-demand ratio of below 70%.

The city government has come up with short-term, intermediate and long-term plans to solve the problem, including a short-term plan of renting 5% of the city’s public housing units that have been reserved for “people who study or work in Taipei” to students, Lin said.
Full report on the Taipei Times site