Monaco Taking Land From Sea for Millionaires to Live On

Inside the $2B land reclamation project
By Kate Seamons,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 21, 2017 7:35 AM CST

Monaco is set to get 3% bigger. The Guardian looks at Prince Albert II's decision to green-light a construction project that will see 15 acres of land reclaimed from the sea so that more luxury homes can be built on it. The prices are astronomical, and so too, apparently, will be the demand: With its lax tax laws—no personal income tax and no inheritance tax, for instance—about a third of Monaco's residents are millionaires, and the Guardian cites real-estate research that suggests that within 10 years, that figure could jump to roughly 42%.

But Monaco measures just 485 acres, and there's basically no more room for additional housing, which can go for as much as $10,000 per square foot. The new Portier Cove neighborhood, which will cost $2 billion to construct, is not the first reclamation project Monaco has undertaken, notes Business Insider: The larger Fontvieille district was constructed in the 1970s. In a 2016 article on the project, the Telegraph reported the project would take 10 years, and that the "foundations for the titanic operation" alone would take more than 3 years to construct. Hundreds of thousands of tons of sand will be imported from Sicily to create the new land. (in the 20th century, the US shrunk by one square mile.)

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