An urban wasteland is always a headache for communities when it comes to its reuse.
They are increasingly considered as an essential lever for real estate or economic densification and therefore coveted by promoters and developers.
But these spaces can also make it possible to meet challenges in the face of global warming, for example through revegetation.
This is the option that the Seine Eure Agglomeration and the city of Louviers chose on the plot of a former service station.
For decades, at the corner of Avenue Winston-Churchill and Rue du Commandant-l'Herminier, an Esso service station served daily fuel, inflated tires and cleaned the windshields of thousands of people. motorists.
The creation of a high-level bus line between Val-de-Reuil station and the city center of Louviers forced its owner to close it in 2019 and put the 850 m2 plot up for sale.
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“You can imagine that he could do what he wanted and that he received lots of proposals, especially for car washes.
As right next door, after the deconstruction of buildings, we chose to create a park, in terms of urban coherence and the need for green lungs, in partnership with the Agglo Seine Eure, we made a proposal.
It was necessary to persuade the owner without going through pre-emption.
Ultimately, it was the Agglo Seine Eure which acquired this problem and carried out the project,” rejoices François-Xavier Priollaud, the mayor of Louviers.
A cost of 348,000 euros
The deed of sale signed, the community then called on a design office to carry out investigations into the soil in order to know its level of pollution, “with few traces” and appointed the Maillot de Louviers company for the deconstruction. buildings and the extraction of tanks.
Clean place, a landscape architect then imagined “a garden with a few dozen tall stems and shrubs of local species, three benches and a lighting pole.
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The green space project was entrusted to Pinson Paysage Normandie in Val-de-Reuil, “so that it is easy to maintain.
Nothing disproportionate to the location, as it was to be a plant opening between the park and a medical center.
A peaceful place where biodiversity can reappear,” adds the elected official.
The renaturation operation cost 348,000 euros and benefited from one of the first grants from the Green Fund to the tune of 66,584 euros.