Residents of Boulevard de l'Hôpital and environmentalists already call it "the wall".
A building 300 meters long, 37 meters high, which will house more than 50,000 square meters of offices, a hotel, a student residence, a smaller share of housing and nearly 20,000 square meters of shops, with private parking and public.
Around the Gare d'Austerlitz, whose renovation-transformation project is accelerating under the hall and in the railway enclosure, the protest escalates on the neighboring land, where excavators and cranes make room for the future “Cour Muséum”.
The one which will host, by 2025, the flagship real estate complex of the 900 million euro project, this "A7A8 block" of 90,000 square meters, which amazes opponents by its size as much as its essentially commercial and tertiary vocation .
A 900 million euro project
This “contemporary station district”, as it is defended by the promoters - no less than 5 owners, including SNCF Gare & Connexions, is not only defenders, in particular because of the ecological impact of a such project.
The low share of housing is also one of the aspects pinpointed during the public inquiry organized last summer.
The latter, on the other hand, gave good environmental points to the gigantic 900 million project, whose 3,400 m2 photovoltaic farm will supply the offices and the hotel with electricity, while the hot water for the homes will come from solar collectors on the roof.
Perhaps, but that is not enough to seduce the opponents, starting with the residents whose horizon will come up against 37 meters in height.
As for traders, many fear a loss of customers fatal to the soul of the neighborhood and its social fabric.
"A large 22,000 square meter supermarket 500 meters from my home, that will inevitably have an impact", worries Rachid Ahaouche, the boss of an organic grocery store on rue Saint-Hilaire, where "neighborhood life" takes place. still feel.
“And what additional traffic will drain this center!” Anticipates the merchant.
We don't need that, to continue to concrete Paris at the same time as we encourage people to be greener!
"
An obsolete project?
“This is a project that dates from the 1990s and has not been updated to meet the challenges of 2021!
», Fulminates Olivier Le Marois, member of the Austerlitz Collective and initiator of an online petition, launched this week on the dedicated Change-org site.
It echoes the appeal filed at the end of February at the administrative court by this collective of inhabitants, traders, politicians and associations.
All also denounce a false consultation, truncated by the health crisis which, for example, substituted a "zoom meeting", via the Internet, for a crucial public meeting, scheduled for last July.
In the end, the regional prefect, competent because of the SNCF influence, issued a building permit at the end of December which almost surprised opponents.
Too many trucks, not enough greenery
Winds up against the project, environmentalists and associations, including France nature environment (FNE Paris), SOS Paris and Friends of the Earth, supported by elected EELV Ile-de-France, intend to derail it, or at least widely revise it.
"We need more housing and much less shops and offices, more nature and less concrete, while only 550 square meters of vegetation enclosed in the building", defend the initiators of the appeal.
They also demand “less height and more respect for historical heritage”.
And less road transport, a point which crystallizes many grievances.
"The administrative court can only confirm the aberration of this project, wants to believe Olivier Le Marois.
It provides 7 times more office space than housing, a shopping center as large as 5 hypermarkets, which must be supplied how?
By trucks!
We can imagine the effects on pollution ... "
"The SNCF is becoming a big promoter", tackles the president of FNE Paris, Christine Nédelec.
Under the guise of building a station district, this 300 m building will be a business center ”.
The petition, signed by more than 250 people in less than a week, urges the mayor of Paris (Editor's note, the City is the main shareholder of the developer Semapa), to revise a gigantic project "which perpetuates the mistakes of the 1980s ".
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This is to forget that the City is not the sole project manager and leaves the hot potato to the SNCF, the main promoter of the project.
"We were indeed informed that a group of associations lodged an appeal on the project carried by SNCF and its partners, confirms the first deputy Emmanuel Grégoire, recalling that the permit was" issued and instructed by the State ".
“During the public inquiry, we also asked for changes, in particular an increase in the number of bicycle parking spaces.
Request that the SNCF told us to take into account.
We are going to watch with vigilance, with the town hall of the XIIIth century, the follow-up given to this procedure ”
The "Parisian problem of the transformation of stations"
Saint-Lazare, Montparnasse, Gare du Nord… only the Gare de Lyon and the Gare de l'Est are currently exempt from major expansion and transformation projects and small towns in the city. For FNE Paris, the Austerlitz file is also symptomatic of a "Parisian problem of transforming stations", in reference to the controversy surrounding the renovation and expansion of the Gare du Nord, a project worth 600 million dollars. euros and 50,000 m2 of new surfaces, to make it a “place of life” and a model of the “quarter-hour city” advocated by the mayor of Paris. The same controversy had affected the Saint-Lazare station, transformed in 2012 into a “district in the city” with shopping malls and restaurants. However, the Gare d'Austerlitz project represents nearly two and a half times the size of the Saint-Lazare station.