Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an's reelection campaign on November 2 attacked an "infinite urban renewal" plan unveiled by his ruling party challenger, Puma Shen, calling it a stack of rubber checks that could never be cashed, as the Taipei mayoral race enters its final four weeks before the 2026 Taiwan local elections on November 28.
At a press conference titled "Puma Shen's Infinite Urban Renewal? Don't Let It Become Infinite Fantasy!", Taipei City Councilors Yu Shu-hui and Chan Wei-yuan of Chiang's opposition Kuomintang (KMT), joined by a spokeswoman for Chiang's campaign, said Shen had no answer to the three questions that decide any redevelopment scheme: where the land comes from, what law allows it, and who pays.
Shen Pitches A Housing Swap So Residents Move Only Once
Shen, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate, rolled out the plan on the evening of October 31 at a campaign rally outside Longshan Temple in Taipei's Wanhua District, hours after the race's only televised debate. Urban renewal, the term used in Taiwan for tearing down and rebuilding aging apartment blocks, is a pressing issue in the capital, where redevelopment projects often stall for years.
Under Shen's proposal, residents of old buildings would trade their homes for newly built units nearby through a housing swap platform, so they would not have to move far or move twice. The supply of new homes would come from public land, stalled and resident-led renewal sites, units the city receives from joint development projects, and "zombie" projects that the government would help owners exit. Shen said the city should stop selling its share of joint development housing so those units could feed the swap pool.
"Current urban renewal policy only opens the entrance. If you can't reach the exit, it is meaningless," Shen said, according to Taiwan's United Daily News. Because the swaps would be done one household at a time rather than building by building, he argued, renewal would move faster.
When Chiang questioned the plan's funding on November 1, Shen replied that he would add 20% to an existing city renewal fund and build on the Chiang administration's own plan to hire 109 more staff. He said manpower, not money, was the bigger obstacle, and that legal changes on rebuilding dangerous old buildings were being studied with the Interior Ministry.
KMT Councilors Say The Math Takes Decades
The KMT councilors argued the numbers do not add up. Chan said Taipei completes about 3,000 homes a year through urban renewal, so finishing every eligible building at that pace would take about 50 years. Without enough housing, land, or money, he said, Shen's timeline would be "infinitely delayed."
Chan called the plan "naive to a frightening degree, like playing a video game," and questioned whether residents would even want to move. He pointed to the Minsheng Community, a well-known residential neighborhood in Taipei's Songshan District, where residents are deeply attached to their surroundings. "Is this infinite urban renewal or urban renewal with no filling?" he asked, a pun on the Mandarin words for "infinite" and "no filling," which sound almost identical. In his view, the plan is a big pie with nothing inside.
Yu said that on Taipei's public land, including plots held by housing and urban renewal agencies, a single site can rarely yield more than 200 new homes. Moving residents out, rebuilding, and starting the next round could take eight years for those 200 units, she said, "which means two mayoral terms might produce just 200 homes of urban renewal."
The campaign spokeswoman questioned why Shen waited until after the debate to announce the plan, given that he had said a day earlier that land and funding were already worked out. "Where is the land? What is the legal basis? Where does the money come from? Explain it all at once!" she said, accusing Shen of selling policies at his own rallies while avoiding public scrutiny.
Chiang's Camp Invokes Former President Chen Shui-bian
Yu also pressed Shen on whether he would abandon social housing, the publicly built rental homes that three successive Taipei mayors, Hau Lung-bin, Ko Wen-je, and Chiang, have expanded in turn. Shen has not said whether the swap plan would draw land away from social housing, she said, and owes residents a clear answer.
She accused Shen of ignoring the limits of the real world, including limited staff, budgets, and land. "Because he can never cash them, he can write as many as he likes," Yu said of his promises, using a Taiwanese expression for bounced checks. She said she feared Shen would end up like former President Chen Shui-bian, a former DPP Taipei mayor, whose campaign slogan promised that "dreams are most beautiful, and hope will follow."
Six Questions For Shen's Urban Renewal Experts
Shen has said he spent a long time working out the complex exchange mechanism with experts and scholars. Yu challenged those experts to come forward publicly and answer six questions:
- Land: Where will the city-owned land for swap housing come from, and will it crowd out social housing?
- Legal basis: How will the swaps comply with rules on exchanging public property while protecting private ownership?
- Fairness: Who qualifies, how will homes be valued, and who pays the difference?
- Stalled projects: If the city gains only part of a building, how can it ensure reconstruction goes ahead, or will swaps require every owner to agree?
- The cycle itself: If the first batch of old homes cannot be rebuilt, where will the next batch of new homes come from?
- Residents' choice: How will people keep their existing neighborhoods, and why would a government swap beat simply selling and buying on the market?
Polls After The Debate Point In Opposite Directions
The housing fight comes as two polls released on November 2, both conducted after the October 31 debate, gave sharply different pictures of the race.
A survey by ETtoday's polling unit put Chiang at 52.0% and Shen at 40.7%, with 6.0% undecided. It also found 55.9% of respondents expect Chiang to win, against 39.0% for Shen, and 55.8% said they were satisfied with Chiang's performance as mayor. That poll was conducted online from October 31 to November 1 among 1,965 Taipei residents drawn from a member panel, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.2 percentage points.
A telephone poll commissioned by the Taiwan Taolue Association showed the reverse, with Shen at 52.6% and Chiang at 35.3%, a gap of 17.3 points, and 7.7% undecided. In that survey, 41.2% said Shen won the debate and 26.3% said Chiang did, while 47.9% expected Shen to win the election. It surveyed 1,436 people by landline and mobile phone on October 31 and November 1, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.6 points.
| Poll (release date) | Puma Shen (DPP) | Chiang Wan-an (KMT) |
| ETtoday, online panel (Nov. 2) | 40.7% | 52.0% |
| Taiwan Taolue Association, telephone (Nov. 2) | 52.6% | 35.3% |
| Z Media, telephone (Oct. 22) | 42.8% | 39.0% |
| Xinmin Cross-Strait Research Association, telephone (Oct. 20) | 50.3% | 33.3% |
The gap may partly reflect differences in method and sponsorship, and earlier surveys have been just as divided. A Z Media poll released on October 22 had Shen narrowly ahead, 42.8% to 39.0%, while an October 20 poll commissioned by the Xinmin Cross-Strait Research Association showed Shen leading by 17 points.
Housing has become one of the clearest dividing lines in the race. During the debate, Chiang said the number of urban renewal cases had risen 2.4 times under his administration, while Shen countered that more than 70 approved projects had failed to break ground after five years. With Taipei long regarded as a KMT stronghold, the outcome of the capital's contest is the most closely watched result of the 2026 Taiwan local elections.
You've read it. Now join the conversation — follow us on X, Facebook and IG. Editor: Penny Wang
