The city's top legislative body was presented yesterday with a draft version of a new urban planning law that would limit construction density in down-town Shanghai while introducing the city's first zoning regulations.

A draft of the new law was presented to the Standing Committee of the Shanghai People's Congress yesterday. The committee will begin debating the legislation today and is expected to pass a revised version of the law by the end of this year.

The law aims at limiting the number of skyscrapers in Shanghai, which have caused land subsidence and negatively affected living conditions.

"The city's increasing number of tall buildings have had various negative influences on the down-town's landscape and eco-logical situation," said Mao Jialiang, director of the Shanghai Urban Planning Administrative Bureau.

The draft authorizes the bureau to set up detailed rules to divide areas within the Outer Ring Road into dozens of zones.

Each zone would have its own regulations on the permissible height of new buildings, construction density and the amount of parkland developers must construct around new structures.

"With an estimated population of around 50,000, each zone will be equipped with various service facilities, including shopping malls, schools and hospitals," said Tang Zilai, deputy dean of the urban planning department at Tongji University.

"Those zones will not be universal in size but they will become the elementary unit of the city's urban planning," said Tang, who is helping draft the plan.

The new law, the first major revision of planning regulations in Shanghai since 1995, will also limit the "plot ratio" of new buildings to ensure that high-rises are not built side-by-side. Plot ratio refers to a project's total land area divided by the building's floor space. Thus developers would still be allowed to create massive skyscrapers like the Jin Mao Tower, but only if they construct the building on a huge area or otherwise-empty land.

The draft law calls for developers and construction companies that don't comply with city regulations to face a maximum penalty of up to 50 percent of the project cost. Currently, the maximum penalty is 30 percent of a project's total cost.

(eastday.com October 9, 2003)