Construction started yesterday on new apartments for some of the 26,000 residents who will be relocated to make way for World Expo 2010.
The first-phase projects are located in Minhang District's Pujiang Town and in Pudong New Area's Sanlin Town.
The pujiang Expo Garden will cover 151.3 hectares and comprise 1.12 million square meters of living space. The Shanghai World Expo Bureau said the project will be finished in two to three years.
The sanlin Expo Garden will provide 900,000 square meters of apartments on 132.9 hectares of land.
Those residences are scheduled for completion by June 2006.
The bureau did not disclose the number of apartments, the size of the investment or housing prices.
But local government has pledged that the cost of apartments built for families relocated by infrastructure projects will be below 3,500 yuan (US$422) per square meter.
The shanghai Expo Land Holdings Co is handling the Pujiang Town project and the Shanghai Pudong Real Estate Group is responsible for the one across the Huangpu River.
The land for the projects was awarded in August through open bidding.