Shezi Island is a sandbar located on the northwest side of Taipei City, at the confluence of the Keelung River and the Tamsui River. It is a natural floodplain, covering approximately 300 hectares and with a population of about 11,000.

Since 1960, Shezi Island has been designated as a flood detention area in Taipei’s flood control plans. Furthermore, it was designated a “development restriction zone” in the “Yangmingshan Administration’s Shilin and Beitou Areas Plan,” prohibiting and restricting construction. This means that Shezi Island can only be used for minimal land use. Compared to the 200-year return period flood protection standard for other waterfront areas in Taipei, Shezi Island has maintained a relatively low 20-year return period (only higher than the 5-year return period for Guandu area) since 1987, avoiding the risk of flooding in surrounding areas if the levees are raised.

However, as urban land becomes increasingly scarce, Shezi Island, a relatively intact piece of land, has inevitably fallen into the Taipei City Government’s numerous “land development” plans. For example, the Taipei Manhattan Plan was proposed during the Hau Lung-bin administration in 2000 (but ultimately failed to pass the environmental impact assessment process), and the Eco-Shezi Island Plan was proposed during the Ko Wen-je administration in 2016 (the subject of this environmental impact assessment lawsuit). These plans share the common feature of leveling and filling in the island’s land and raising the surrounding seawalls, transforming the restricted Shezi Island into a large area available for residential, commercial, and industrial use.

Regarding the Eco-Shezi Island development plan, the Taipei City Government intends to conduct overall development through land acquisition. This “old city renewal” development plan covers 302.1 hectares, exceeding the 20-hectare limit stipulated in Article 27, Paragraph 1, Item 7 of the Environmental Impact Assessment Scope Determination Standards for Development Activities. Therefore, an environmental impact assessment was required. The Taipei City Government approved the environmental impact assessment on January 19, 2022. However, what raises questions is how raising the dike on Shezi Island will affect the drainage and flood control of neighboring areas (such as the Guandu Plain, Wugu, Sanchong, and Luzhou). Moreover, this project is a development plan to lift restrictions on construction, prioritizing flood control. Therefore, whether the environmental impact assessment (EIA) is based on sufficient information to determine whether the proposed flood control facilities on Shezi Island can still achieve Taipei’s flood control goals is a key focus. Secondly, whether the Taipei City Government included all aspects of the development plan in the EIA review, or arbitrarily separated them (such as wastewater treatment facilities), is also crucial to the legality of the EIA conclusions.

Furthermore, the Taipei City Government’s approach of phased expropriation and complete land clearing may be contrary to protecting residents’ lives and property. This approach ignores the relatively low cost of living and the still-active agricultural land on Shezi Island, which provides a place for many families and the elderly to live. It also overlooks the island’s unique settlement patterns and intangible cultural assets such as the “Nighttime Earth God” folk rituals—networks of care and support that cannot be replaced by simply relocating residents to project-based housing. For residents, if the Taipei City Government truly intends to address Shezi Island’s long-standing problems of construction restrictions, lack of detailed planning, and insufficient public facilities, it should propose an “environmental redevelopment” plan rather than a comprehensive development project: assisting existing residents with on-site redevelopment and providing necessary infrastructure.

Given the numerous controversies surrounding the environmental impact assessment (EIA) conclusions, Shezi Island residents have filed a lawsuit to have the EIA conclusions revoked.