Kuomintang New Taipei City mayoral candidate Lee Szu-chuan has served up policy substance on accelerating urban renewal — good news for residents of ageing buildings awaiting reconstruction and for developers, and a development that formally shifts the policy battle in the New Taipei mayoral race onto real estate.

• The core of the policy is to turn the city government from a "reviewer of urban renewal" into a "facilitator of urban renewal," establishing a cross-departmental urban renewal promotion committee convened by the mayor in person.
• Dangerous ageing buildings will have a single service window, with the city government subsidising assessment costs, and disaster-prevention urban renewal projects receiving incentives of up to twice the statutory floor area ratio.
• Floor area ratio rules will undergo a comprehensive review and a give-back mechanism will be established, with the resources obtained channelled into social housing, parks and green space, and transport infrastructure.
• In flood-prone areas, detention and flood-control facilities will be incorporated into urban renewal incentives, with larger sites encouraged to install underground detention space.
• A "floor area ratio transfer platform" will also be set up to match land-for-land swaps, giving small parcels a chance at reconstruction as well.

Responding to Democratic Progressive Party rival Su Chiao-hui's proposal to establish an urban renewal bureau, Lee said urban renewal is not a question of administrative rank but a question of speed.

Outlook: Urban renewal and housing look set to become the main battleground of the New Taipei mayoral race, and the two candidates' policy contest is likely to escalate further.