ABSTRACT
Every foot of land in Taiwan is regulated according to either the Urban Planning Law (for the designated urban planning districts) or the Regional Planning Law (for the land outside those districts). The former was originally enacted in 1939 and the latter in 1974. Now a unified National Land Planning Law (NLPL) has been in the making for several years. Once passed in the Legislative Yuan it will incorporate the former and, as many people expect, replace the latter. Innumerable meetings have been held in the past decade for discussion or consultation by the government offices responsible for drafting the new law, and a considerable amount of research on certain substantive topics related to the NLPL has been contracted out to the academic community in Taiwan. At the time of writing in 2009, it is still not certain when the NLPL will be passed and what final form it will take. But whatever the outcome may eventually be, the case is considered a major event within planning circles in Taiwan.
