There were eleven small lodgings there. Poorly insulated broom closets inaccessible to firefighters in which many students may have spent their best years. In Rennes, where more than 25% of the inhabitants are students, many owners have cut up their apartments to “adapt” them to the most precarious. The reasoning is quickly made: three studios of 15 m² rented 400 euros per month bring much more than a T3 of 50 m². Especially since the youngest will probably moan less loudly if the toilets are on the landing or the bar downstairs is too noisy. A festive place in the Breton capital, the historic center has gradually lost its families to become a place of division and subdivision. Yes, the historic center has remained inhabited but not by owner-occupiers. A space for renting and subletting deserted in the summer which has led to its inexorable deterioration over the years.
In 2008, the Pattier report estimated the number of “very degraded” buildings in the historic center of Rennes at 300, while 300 others were considered “degraded”. The threat of global collapse was real. At that time, the municipality signed a weekly decree of imminent danger implying the instantaneous evacuation of the inhabitants. But that was before. In ten years, the city has renovated 243 buildings, some of which were barely standing. 9 and 11 rue Saint-Georges were among them. Empty since 2011, the three half-timbered buildings have been closed for a long time, the time that the public authorities can acquire all the housing. In a few days, they will be inhabited. “Rennes had made a specialty of dividing its apartments to rent them to students. The owners found it beneficial. Here we did the opposite. We have enlarged the surfaces to bring families back, ”explains Didier Le Bougeant, elected from the center of Rennes.
“Not everyone likes it”
Instead of the 11 tiny dwellings that existed there, the public developer Territoires has created three of them, with a surface area ranging from 60 to 80 m² thanks to the merger of three narrow buildings from the 16th and 17th centuries. On the ground floor, the extension of the Le Failler bookstore is set in a setting of old stones. Entirely redesigned, the spaces offer a sometimes low-ceilinged maze. You have to be careful not to bump into the imposing wooden beams and to raise your feet to step over the small steps shaped to make up for the differences in level. But let’s say it: the whole is superb, full of cachet. “Usually, we never show people before. But here, we preferred to show the accommodations, because they are different, they don’t have a parking space. It does not please everyone, ”we explain at Archipel Habitat. The three apartments have been entrusted to the social landlord, with the aim of bringing diversity back to the neighborhood.
For the specialist in the renovation of the old center, this site was one of the most complicated to manage, on equal points with the Saint-Michel block, burned down in 2010 and very recently delivered. “We started the rue Saint-Georges operation in 2009 after the first danger order. Usually, the files take five years to be assembled, plus two years of construction,” recalls Mélanie Barchino. Here, it will have taken nearly fifteen years. “It’s my favourite”, recognizes the project manager at Territoire. “It’s here that we learned to discover the complexities of the old centre”, recognizes Nathalie Appéré.
A rope to escape the fire, really?
Before becoming mayor, the elected socialist has long piloted this thorny issue. “During the first visits, we had discovered the concept of pulleys. They were to be used to evacuate the building in the event of a fire, ”recalls the mayor, still frightened by this rope system supposed to allow tenants to escape the fire. We know that it would probably have been quite ineffective in the face of a fire, but it seemed to give the owners a clear conscience.
Beyond the time spent to complete this project, it will above all have required an enormous financial investment on the part of the community. “We chose an old inhabited center with a commercial function. We don’t want museumification,” assures the mayor. Committed to a third safeguard plan for its old centre, the city of Rennes has set itself the objective of rehabilitating around a hundred buildings by 2030, i.e. around 600 housing units.