The car to go to the center of Paris?
Niet!
Paris City Hall plans to set up, by 2022, a limited traffic zone throughout the center of the capital, from Place de la Bastille to Place de la Concorde, from Boulevard Saint-Germain to Boulevard Poissonnière.
A large perimeter in which "only residents, buses, taxis but also craftsmen, professionals or delivery people will be able to continue to travel".
At the risk of increasing real estate prices?
At the end of 2020, buying in Paris-Center (the new arrondissement, including the first four) cost according to notaries nearly 13,000 euros per m2, down slightly with the Covid-19. The 5th, 6th and 7th arrondissements, also partly affected by the semi-pedestrianization desired by the Paris city hall, are not left out: the m2 varies, on average, from 13,500 to more than 14,200 euros per m2 ... To be brief: the limited traffic zone would cover the districts which are today the most expensive in the capital.
What will it be tomorrow? "No scientific study has been carried out on this subject," reveals Sébastien Bourdin, professor of economic geography at EM Normandie, a specialist in the pedestrianization of towns. "However, if pedestrianization improves the quality of life, there are fewer negative externalities linked to the car, it can generate an increase in real estate prices because they are indexed to this quality of life", adds the expert.
Delphine Herman, real estate hunter and founder of Homelyoo, agrees: by making the bride prettier, we increase her price… “We will increase the number of tourists and therefore the interest of investors who will pounce on the small ones. surfaces to make tourist rental, more profitable, and raise prices, ”she thinks, fearing to see this“ limited traffic area ”transformed into a“ tourist enclave ”.
"We take the risk with pedestrianization of making this place a museum or dead city like the Ile de la Cité", support Franck Aprile and Philippe Gaudry, managers of the Red Children agencies.
Price changes on a case-by-case basis
Pedestrianization? Alexis Mathieu knows. His agency La Forêt is located right in the Montorgueil district, the first to have been returned to pedestrians. “Pedestrianization enhances the neighborhood,” explains the real estate agent. In Montorgueil, “boboland” for some, it is all the more appreciated because it allows businesses to spread out onto the street and others to develop. “Our customers are generally young workers without a car,” he explains. When they have one, it stays nine months of the year in the garage and only comes out for the holidays… ”With especially small surfaces on the market in the district, families, who need a car the most. , have for the most part already left.
The evolution of prices with pedestrianization could be done on a case-by-case basis. “Maybe rue Montorgueil will become too noisy, with its shops, compared to another? »Asks Alexis Mathieu. Large boulevards, with today an important automobile traffic, could attract buyers. Franck Aprile saw it with the rue de Rivoli, closed to cars since the deconfinement in May, a development made final in September. “Customers don't mind buying there anymore because it's quieter,” he explains. In two months, we sold three apartments there when, before, we would have needed more time and to lower the price. "Perhaps we should expect a rebalancing of prices," said Alexis Mathieu.
However, demand should not be unduly impacted: the town hall's plan is to avoid transit, but not to stop residents' cars, who will be able to continue to circulate there. According to INSEE, in 2017 (the most recent figures), a little more than one in three Parisians had a car (compared to two in three for the entire Île-de-France). The bicycle boom and the development of cycle paths, with the arrival of electric scooters, could have reduced this share even further.
In France, several city centers have been pedestrianized or semi-pedestrianized in the past, like that of Strasbourg (Bas-Rhin), Montpellier (Hérault) or Nantes (Loire-Atlantique), but it is is often too old to learn from the evolution of prices.
Other cities are trying in recent years.
Marseille (Bouches-du-Rhône) thus pedestrianized the famous Canebière at the end of 2019, Lyon (Rhône) pedestrianized several of its streets and is increasing the number of experiments ... Nancy (Meurthe-et-Moselle) also plans to return several places of the road to pedestrians. city… Examples among others, everywhere in France.
The Brussels counterexample
Across the border, in Brussels, Belgium, the pedestrianization of the old town began in 2015 with the immediate effect… a fall in prices. "We lost 20% of a sudden on beautiful apartments and today we are just catching up with the hollow", explains Parisian Evelyne Gielen, real estate agent in Brussels for 20 years. And the expert to point out what is wrong: "The perimeter was too wide from the start, with rules that change all the time, a semi-pedestrian area where there are always cars, and when there is instability. , it is well known, we do not buy ... "
Note, however, that unlike Paris, the city center of Brussels brings together the poorest populations while the periphery brings together the richest populations. Another difference: the transport network, hyperdense in Paris, especially in the center, is less developed in Brussels. However, some observers note a transformation of the hypercentre since pedestrianization, with the arrival of new high-end real estate projects, which could contribute to a gentrification of the hypercentre in the long term. This leaves Evelyne Gielen to say that the semi-pedestrianization of Paris, "if it is done in upscale neighborhoods", could lead to an increase in prices.
Paris could be a textbook case for the whole world, if the Town Hall completed its project. The transparency of real estate data and the large volume of transactions carried out in the capital would finally allow a real study to be carried out on this burning question of the impact of pedestrianization on real estate prices.
