TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Aging housing has become a pressing issue in Taiwan and limited access to apartment elevators is weighing on senior residents, particularly in the capital.

Taiwan recorded 9.04 million residential housing units as of the end of September, 1.01 million of which were built more than 50 years ago, data from the Real Estate Information Platform has shown. About 3.13 million of them were over 40 years old.

The country witnessed a boom in the construction of condominiums during the 1950s and 1960s, which have stood for half a century, according to Tseng Ching-te (曾敬德), a researcher at Taiwanese real estate agency Sinyi Realty.

Taipei has 125,000 houses over 50 years old, or 13.8%, the highest in the six special municipalities, wrote UDN. Housing over 30 years old takes up over 70% of the total, according to Liberty Times.

This has presented a risk for the elderly as most apartments with four or five floors do not come with an elevator. As of October, Taipei had over 509,615 senior residents, defined as those 65 years old or older, accounting for 20.67% of the total population of 2.47 million, said the Taipei City Department of Social Welfare.

Urban renewal was featured in the platforms of all three major contenders for Taipei mayor in the November elections. Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) of the Kuomintang (KMT), the mayor-elect, has said he would push for a lowered threshold for government-led rebuilding of residences, from the required permission rate of 90% of the property owners to 75%.