SHANGHAI will protect about 90 percent of the remaining lane-style old residential buildings in downtown and demolish the rest as they have “no protection value,” the housing authority said.

According to a recent census on the city’s historic buildings, there are 8.13 million square meters of lane-style residential buildings older than 50 years.

Among them are some 7.3 million square meters lane-style or lilong buildings that are of historic value and should be preserved, said Pei Xiao, deputy director of Shanghai Housing and Urban-Rural Construction and Management Commission.

The remaining 800,000 or so square meters of old residential building have no value and will be torn down. The city will set up specialized funds for historic building protection and urban revamping for the renovation of the old residential buildings, he told a forum.

The government will relocate residents in buildings deemed to have special historic value and invite developers to convert them for other uses while preserving their historic structures.