“We are going to fight to have this high school but, sincerely, we would have missed these difficulties.
Before the city council, Frédéric Bouche struggles to hide his annoyance.
The mayor of Villeparisis (PS) indeed announces bad news to the elected officials present.
During a hearing at the Melun Administrative Court on May 7, the public rapporteur recommended that the decision to approve the local urban plan (PLU) taken two years ago be quashed.
Declared of public utility, this plan notably provides for the construction of a high school for opening by 2027.
A problematic modification of the plan
The opinion of the public rapporteur would be motivated by a procedural error made by the previous municipality.
The latter is said to have modified the PLU after presenting its adopted version as part of the public inquiry.
"There is deception on the goods somewhere," said the new mayor.
You tell the public
Here is the document that will outline the future of our community for the next fifteen years and
then, once the presentation is made, you modify it on your own.
Legally, it was taking the risk of having a very big loophole in the PLU.
"
The modification in question consisted of the creation of a park in the city center.
Problem: it concerned the property of a private individual and implied that it moved from a building area to an area dedicated to public facilities.
This individual therefore lodged a free appeal to which the town hall did not respond favorably and which therefore became a contentious appeal to the administrative court.
"I no longer have the chronology of operations in mind but, at the time, I did not have the information according to which the fact of wanting the development of a park in the city center could cancel the PLU" , defends the former mayor Hervé Touguet (LR).
A PLU already fragile in the eyes of the State
In addition to this particular, the state had also filed an appeal, evoking in its brief "misfires in the procedure, the issue of housing and OAP (
Editor's note: development and programming orientations)
" according to Frédéric Bouche. During the last municipal council, the mayor also indicated that his predecessor had requested a law firm to measure the risk associated with these two remedies.
This legal consultation concluded that it was possible to withdraw the deliberation of the municipal council in order to make changes to the PLU.
"A sign of the fragility of the plan", for Frédéric Bouche.
It is for this reason that the mayor of Villeparisis, once elected, quickly undertook discussions with the State to withdraw this summary and safeguard the PLU on which the completion of the high school depended.
"The State felt that the city did not put the conditions in place to provide sufficient social housing," confirms Hervé Touguet.
But the deficiency was finally lifted in September 2020, after the last municipal elections, and is therefore based on elements communicated under my mandate.
"
The hope of a partial cancellation
If the final decision of the administrative court is not expected before a month, the mayor in office is hardly under any illusions and fears a return to the previous PLU which did not include an area dedicated to the high school: "The conclusions of the rapporteur are followed in 95% of cases.
We dare to hope that this is a partial cancellation of the specific zoning of the individual.
"
Now a municipal councilor in the opposition, Hervé Touguet points to a tendency towards “catastrophism”: “The project will not fall apart.
If the PLU is canceled, nothing prevents restarting the procedure, especially since there is not much to modify.
We know that high school is a long procedure of six to seven years, I did not even see the school open to this mandate.
His successor, however, deplores a delay that the municipality could have done without: "We are reduced to hoping when we could be on a secure document that would allow us to say today to the region: we are in a position to buy your land for the high school to come. The land envisaged for the construction of the school is located at the entrance to the city, on the site of the Legrand farm and on the land behind.
Competent in the matter, the executive of the regional council does not bury the project: “If the PLU of Villeparisis were to be canceled, we would regret it. The Île-de-France region confirms its wish to build a high school in this city. Indeed, the future school establishment appears as a necessity in the seventh most populated city of Seine-et-Marne with more than 26,000 inhabitants. At the start of the next school year, a new college must accommodate 600 students, ie half of the tonnage planned for the future high school. "Valérie Pécresse also mentioned the idea of including BTS classes in the aeronautical field because we are 5 kilometers as the crow flies from the airport", underlines Hervé Touquet.