Taipei City Construction Management Office

In order to avoid accidents resulted from falling tiles of building’s external walls, the Taipei City Government has drafted the “Program of Inspections on Building External Wall Finishing in Taipei City” and proceeded with phased inspections over building external wall finishing and attachments starting from today to the end of 2014. Besides the on-going handling of the cases of urgent and high risk, it is expected to complete the site investigations, data compiling and overall inspection of over 800 cases of falling building external wall reported by the neighborhood magistrates and secretaries by Q1, 2014; followed by the publication of the Manual of Q&A for Building External Wall Safety Management, the establishment of the website for Citizen Report System and the stipulation of the “Incentive Directions for Assisting to Report on Building External Wall Finishing in Taipei City” by Q2, as well as the supervisions on improvements upon the completion of the overall inspections in Q3 and Q4.According to the Construction Management Office, Department of Urban Development, every building considered dangerous to public safety by “Community Architects” should post a “Caution! Falling Objects!” sign on site and put a notice on the Internet, as well as set up the temporary safety fence by the improvement deadline; anyone who refuses to take improvement measures shall be fined $ 60,000-300,000 NTD for violation of the Building Act and a temporary safety fence erected by the Taipei City Government to protect citizens’ lives and safety. Moreover, the Manual of Q&A for Building External Wall Safety Management will be published to introduce the examples of safety fences, reference prices and relevant resources.According to Bian, Tai-Ming, Director of the Department of Urban Development, the Taipei City Government will not only facilitate overall inspections over external walls in 2014, but also initiate Taipei City construction management regulations as well as suggest to the central authority to inform the owners of the buildings aged over a certain number of years about compulsory obligations of self-inspections on external walls to avoid such accidents caused by falling objects. Report falling tiles from external walls to the Taipei City Government by calling 1999.