Paris: Anne Hidalgo's local urban plan adopted

Green spaces and social housing in addition: the local urban plan (PLU), adopted in its initial version on Monday, June 5 by the Council of Paris, promises to adapt the capital to climate change while continuing the effort against expensive housing, in a city that is losing its inhabitants.

300 hectares of green space more

The result of two years of negotiations between the components of the majority of Mayor Anne Hidalgo, this reference text - 3000 pages - for the examination of building permits and urban development must draw a capital "better adapted to climate change" by 2035-2040. With the adoption of the plan, which will not take place in its final version until late 2024 or early 2025 at the end of the public inquiry, "40% of public space will be dewaterproofed by 2050" and 300 hectares of additional green spaces will become accessible to the public, says the left-wing executive.

New park in the North-East of Paris, parking lots of residences debited, private spaces open to the public .... The assistant to urban planning Emmanuel Grégoire, who says he has "already identified 110 hectares", intends to "open all this within ten years". But the ecologist Emile Meunier (EELV) has "some questions about the ability of Emmanuel Grégoire and Anne Hidalgo to reach" these 300 hectares more and asks for "a counter of m2 of green spaces on the pediment of the town hall". Rachida Dati (LR) described this objective as "unrealistic" and "demagogic". The executive also promises the protection of the capital's 100,000 alignment trees. According to Emmanuel Grégoire, "the current PLU did not protect trees". On all plots of more than 150 m2, real estate projects will have to have an increasing share - up to 65% - reserved for open ground.

Housing: transforming the existing

Despite this effort, the future PLU "will not be an anti-construction PLU: it will allow to build where there is room. But we rely more on transformation, "summarized Emmanuel Grégoire. The town hall having almost reached its goal of 25% of social housing by 2025, it intends to go further with 40% of public housing - 30% of social housing and 10% called "affordable" - ten years later. But at the same time, "123,000 Parisians have fled Paris for 10 years," recalled Rachida Dati.

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Around 1000,200 new reserves – plots "pelletized" to become social housing – have been identified, with a budget for pre-emptions set to double from €400 million to €2022 million. The increase in the property tax decided at the end of 5000 allows this effort. And any office building of more than 2 m10 built or renovated will have to devote 180% of its surface to the creation of housing, a "functional mix" that displeases the right. Measures "counterproductive", according to the elected LR Valérie Montandon, which will "discourage homeowners to do thermal renovations". The communists, through the voice of Jacques Baudrier, put forward "a historic PLU for public facilities" with <> plots reserved for health, sport, culture or early childhood.

More or less density?

The Greens obtained a limitation of future buildings to 37 m in height, the "historic height of 1977" to which the socialists then derogated up to 180 m with the Batignolles court, a Duo tower and the Triangle tower currently under construction, recalled Emile Meunier. For the ecologist, the Parisian left "has turned the dark page of urbanism led by Anne Hidalgo and Jean Louis Missika", the predecessor of Emmanuel Grégoire.

If the list of buildings protected by the town hall is to be extended by more than 800 addresses, elevations will remain possible in the widest streets. Rachida Dati denounced the 1500 elevations allowed by the Parisian left since the adoption of the current PLU in 2006, which have "contributed to the disappearance of hollow teeth and our Faubourien heritage". Elevations "must be delivered with infinite care," asked Béatrice Lecouturier (MoDem). With these measures, the executive will be able to "densify more", fears Jean-Pierre Lecoq (LR), while the 3.8 million m2 built for twenty years have "saturated and mineralized the city", deplores Pierre-Yves Bournazel (Horizons).