Deprived of its subsidy for 2022. It is obviously not good to criticize the projects of the pink city.
The museum of Old Toulouse makes the bitter experience of it.
The said subsidy, which the town hall had already divided by half last year, was simply cancelled.
The cause ?
It does not directly concern this establishment but the real estate project of the Cour du Dôme in La Grave, in the Saint-Cyprien district, which the association of Toulouse residents of Toulouse, owner of the museum, has been contesting for four years.
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Labeled Museum of France, the museum of Old Toulouse takes place in the Dumay hotel, a late Renaissance residence located a hundred meters from the Place du Capitole.
Open to the public since 1955, it offers various collections -constituted following donations, legacies and purchases- retracing the history of the pink city.
Remedy for fraud
Work on the Cour du Dôme began in 2018. Behind this name hides a complex of five buildings.
Some 25,000 m² of land have been bought by developer Kaufman & Broad.
Housing, rooms in hotel residences, shops and an underground car park with 400 spaces will take place in the former La Grave hospital, destroyed for the project.
The Saint-Joseph de la Grave chapel, a building classified as a Historic Monument, deconsecrated since 2015 and owned by the pink city, will become a cultural space dedicated to the hospitable tradition of the place.
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For the Toulousains of Toulouse, this
"inappropriate"
and
"out of scale"
project deteriorates the architectural landscape of the Saint-Cyprien district, located on the left bank of the Garonne.
On the other side of the new bridge.
Since 1904, this apolitical association has had the statutory mission of defending the city's heritage.
“
This mission leads us to generate this litigation”,
advances for
Le Figaro
Aline Tomasin, president of the association and former curator of Historic Monuments for the Midi-Pyrénées region.
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After a first gracious appeal rejected in 2019, the association decides to lodge another appeal, this time for fraud, with the administrative court of Toulouse, in August 2020. By examining the file of the building permit, a detail challenges the members .
On his first cuts, the promoter presented the finished project, which motivated the anger of the association because
"without opposing it, we wanted it aligned on the base of the dome of the chapel, which is also the height of the roofs of the others buildings of the old hospice”
, advances Aline Tomasin.
The reality of the Cour du Dôme real estate project in La Grave.
Promoter document
“But looking a little closer, we discover the same photo montage which, coincidentally, is aligned with the base of the dome drum. Did we shrink the project? Not at all: the cuts submitted to the file confirm the first photo!»
The visual of the building permit would therefore be false according to the association, the building actually measuring 6 meters longer than what is recorded.
"As an association for the defense of heritage, we consider that the effect produced by this oversized building on the exceptional ensemble that constitutes the former hospice of La Grave will be disastrous, reducing this monument to ridiculous proportions"
Aline Tomasin, president of the association of Toulousains de Toulouse
"The dream of the town hall is that we withdraw our appeal"
Since the filing of the appeal for fraud, the dialogue between the town hall and the association has gotten bogged down.
"To make us bend, the City has found an argument: to remove the subsidies it gives us, which facilitate the management of our museum".
This subsidy, up to 25,000 euros, had been paid to the museum since 1999.
“In 2020, the subsidy voted in June was received, since the appeal was filed afterwards.
The following year, the City also voted for our grant, which is done in two stages.
The first half was accepted, but not the second
,” says Aline Tomasin.
In November 2021, the city council refused the grant application for 2022 in its entirety. A gesture that the association describes as
“punishment”.
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"The dream of the town hall is that we withdraw our appeal",
notes Aline Tomasin.
But this former curator assures her, the position of the 1,500 members of the association will not change: the maintenance of the appeal was voted
“unanimously”
during the board of directors.
“The town hall believes that we compensate for the loss of the subsidy with the Covid bonus, but we only received it in 2020. Last year, we did not have it.
We have a loss of 12,500 euros in 2021”,
she continues.
The buildings of the Cour du Dôme, still under construction, will be definitively erected in 2023. The appeal lodged is still being examined by the administrative court of Toulouse.
As the debates between the two parties did not lead to any common ground, the association is now considering filing a summary procedure, a procedure preventing the execution of an administrative decision which it considers illegal.