The rich European country building a brand new £1.7bn city to tackle housing crisis
Flats in Monaco routinely sell for £4,230 per square foot with studio apartments fetching £1.68m.
Monaco is spending £1.69billion (€2bn) to reclaim land from the Mediterranean Sea in a bid to address its housing crisis. The priciest country on the planet is home to Dame Shirley Bassey and Sir Lewis Hamilton, along with some 36,000 others squeezed into a principality of just 510 acres.
Flats in Monaco routinely sell for £4,230 (€5,000) per square foot with studio apartments fetching £1.68m (€2m), according to the Telegraph.
A new seafront suburb aims to extend Monaco by some three percent replete with a marina, swimming pool, parks and 130 flats.
Building work on the Mareterra district began in 2018 and the scheme is expected to be completed six months early later this year.
Work began with 18 concrete caissons - watertight retaining structures - were installed before a metal barrier was stretched between them and saltwater pumped out.
Limestone aggregate was used to backfill the space before sand was sprayed on top to complete the reclamation.
To address concerns about the scheme's ecological impact, a meadow of sea grass was replanted and giant clams relocated, according to the Telegraph.
The new neighbourhood links Page Larvotto to Casino Square, with estate agent Caroline Olds saying it is like living in a sunny London.
She told the Telegraph changes to non-dom status in Britain could prompt many rich families to move to Monaco.
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Monaco has a history of reclaiming land from the sea, with former ruler Rainier III known as the "Builder Prince".
Since it wasn't possible to extend the country into France, he backed the idea of land reclamation, with the Larvotto beach district formed in the early 1960s.
Current ruler, Prince Albert II, wants to reclaim more, with the aim of getting at least 12.5 acres.
Twenty percent of the total area of the second smallest country in the world is made up of reclaimed land, according to Tomorrow City.
Efforts to reclaim land date back to 1865 with 5.5 hectares reclaimed by 1880, the same publication reports.
