Shanghai plans to tighten laws protecting old houses to widen the city's conservation areas, a housing and land official said yesterday.

The city government issued new rules last week banning road expansion on most of the 144 downtown roads lined with historic houses.

The rules also ban tall buildings from being built in conservation areas.

"This shows the resolution of the government to conserve the city's old houses," Wang Anshi, an official of the renovation and conservation department of the Shanghai Housing and Land Administrative Bureau, said yesterday.

He said the city's law makers also plan to apply penalties for demolishing old homes in the conservation areas, even if they are not designated as excellent historic buildings.

The current laws, enacted in 2003, protect 632 excellent historic buildings and 12 heritage areas.

Anyone who dismantles a historic building under municipal protection must immediately restore the building and pay a fine of up to five times the cost of rebuilding.

No road expansion will take place along the city's 144 old roads, which include Yuqing Road, Hengshan Road, Urumqi Road S., Ruijin Road No.1, Sinan Road and Wukang Road.

However, some architecture experts have complained that Shanghai still doesn't have a reasonable system to conserve old houses, leaving many valuable houses unprotected.

According to Zheng Shiling, a renowned architecture expert from Tongji University, the city's conservation policy is largely stimulated by economic profit instead of the historic value of the houses.

Tongji University estimates that Shanghai now has less than five million square meters of old houses, particularly shikumen buildings, but the number was four to five times higher in 1949.

(Shanghai Daily December 18, 2007)