“Lack of ambition”, “heavy infrastructure”, “wall”… Parisian ecologists have many grievances to address to the Porte de Montreuil development project, a 140 million euro project whose work must actually start in 2023. They are preparing to vote this Wednesday a wish which requires a “review without delay” of the project, neither more nor less. What trigger the anger of the executive, which thunders against “bobos” and denounces “false” arguments. In all of this, who is telling the truth? And what do local residents think?
The Porte de Montreuil project is worse than a sea serpent. The first meetings on the subject date back to… 2001, more than twenty years ago, which resulted in a first entrusted to the developer Jean-Pierre Pranlas-Descours, abandoned because of its cost in 2008. The latest version aims to create a green public square instead of the current roundabout, a hall with a mezzanine for flea markets and a building-bridge of offices and hotels just above the device. The ambition displayed by Nexity, which won the city’s call for projects in 2019, is that of a “low carbon” district.
“People are tired of living in a lousy corner”
For environmentalists, the truth is quite different. They denounce in their text a project “contrary to the standards of bioclimatic architecture that the city intends to promote”, accuse it of creating “a real wall between Paris and the suburbs which will have the effect of accentuating the physical rupture” and judge that the new flea market will look more like a “shopping gallery” “thus putting an end to an essential part of the identity of the district”. “I’m not sure that we take care of working-class neighborhoods by absolutely wanting to do a project that increases heat islands”, attacks the elected representative of the new environmental group Nathalie Maquoi, in reference to this phenomenon of artificial microclimates on the increase due to global warming.
It is not only the Parisian ecologists who oppose the project. A petition from a dozen environmental associations asks to “fully reconsider this project”, castigating “the irreversible concreting of wooded areas in the ground”.
Opposite, the executive fumes. The current construction assistant and elected communist, Jacques Baudrier, has followed the entire project since 2001, and rails outright against “bobos who consider it good to leave poor people ten more years in their shit to make themselves intellectual pleasure. According to him, this project is acclaimed by the inhabitants who told him of their “impatience” in an area undermined by poverty, where drug trafficking thrives. A petition launched by the Parisian communists gathers around 1,000 signatures, according to the elected official. “People are tired of living in such a lousy place. They want us to do this as quickly as possible, ”sums up Jacques Baudrier, who is angry with the ecologists for not having expressed their reluctance earlier.
Cut down trees and pollution in offices
It is true that in 2019, when the project was voted on, environmentalists simply abstained, Nathalie Maquoi, who was then part of the Génération.s group, going so far as to vote in favor of the project, described as “advanced long awaited”. “If we had said ‘there are too many buildings’ I would have gone to see [Jean-Louis] Missika [ancien adjoint de l’urbanisme] who would have said “ok we put less buildings”. It’s too late there. That’s why I’m angry”, explains Jacques Baudrier to 20 minutes, claiming that overhauling the project would cost 40 million and postpone the project for ten years. The elected official also sweeps away the arguments on the exposure to pollution of the 3,300 additional office workers, affirming that with the current ventilation systems, “when you are in the offices, you are not exposed to pollution”.
For his part, the first deputy in charge of town planning Emmanuel Grégoire refutes the figure of 200 cut trees – “There will never be 200 cut trees” he tells us – as well as the idea that the project would favor the islets heat. “It is scientifically false. The future project is a huge gain in terms of reducing the urban heat island effect (UHI). Let those who say the opposite produce the scientific studies. The first producer of the ICU effect is the asphalt roundabout, which will be vegetated,” says Emmanuel Grégoire, before sending us a study carried out in August 2022 by the Nepsen transition and ÎLÕ firms. This suggests that the ICU score would go from 0.831 to 0.667 with the new project, an improvement of 20%.
A bogus study?
“It is a study that is not one, criticizes Tangui Le Dantec, co-founder of Aux Arbres Citoyens. There is a mixture of resurrected trees and magic trees. Some of the trees saved are shrubs, while the trees felled are large trees. A tree of 15 m compared to a tree of 3 m, it has nothing to do. The refreshment of a tree is proportional to its surface of leaves, it is a ratio of 1 to 125! “.
Contacted by 20 minutes, one of the two Bordeaux firms which carried out the ICU score, ÎLÕ, affirms itself that its study “has no scientific virtue”. “We work with the information given to us by the contracting authority. We never went there, it’s a study that lasts a day, it’s a small study, we didn’t have a lot of data and indeed, without data on the trees, we put them all at the same diameter”, explains Alexandre Colin, head of ÎLÕ, who seems very annoyed. Why did the Paris City Hall not commission Apur to carry out this study, the Parisian urban planning workshop, which has much more resources and which is on site, and with which it usually works? ?
The MRAe, the Regional Environmental Authority Missions, had alerted the town hall in 2019, asking that the impact study “support the justification for the reduction of this risk with regard to the planned construction program which will conversely bring a heat gain. ” But the new opinion produced in 2022 does not repeat the alert on the heat island phenomenon and Noël Jouteur, who produced the last opinion, tells us: “A priori in the terms of the current project it can only improve the heat island effect. »
However, the rapporteur of the organization responsible for environmental assessment, created in 2009 in accordance with European law, does not address an overall satisfaction. “The point of vigilance is the choice of location, explains Noël Jouteur. Putting additional offices in an area where the air quality is poor raises questions. »
What do the locals think?
Ecologists and executives each claim to have the voices of the inhabitants and users of the place, the first highlighting the fleas who would be upwind against the project, the second the residents, consulted in the consultation meetings. 20 minutes went to the site, and did not find, in the few testimonies that we collected at random, the general enthusiasm described by the public construction assistant.
After boulevard Davout, we rush into avenue de la porte de Montreuil, where we pass in front of a pharmacy, a hairdresser, a brasserie, a completely deserted restaurant to a more welcoming café, called Obrigado, located just opposite of the huge roundabout which spits out dozens of cars. Mehdi, 41, the director, has been living here since 2013, and is following the project closely. He hopes for “better traffic flow” but notes “an architectural aberration.” “Yes, I would like the project to exist but while preserving nature. If we commit to colossal work, we have to think about the long term,” he adds.
“At some point, you have to take action”
Further on, on the other side of the avenue, we come across Florie, a mother in a hurry who is going shopping with her baby in a stroller, and who has not been able to take the time to document herself on the project. “All I know is that it had to be a green crossing. I was not exposed to negative sides. But this door is violent on a daily basis, ”says the mother, who would like at least something to be done. A few meters away, Cécile, 41, says she is in a hurry as it changes. “Given the duration of the project, I believe that at some point you have to take action. If only for traffic reasons. It should start in the next 5 years at least. »
A little further on, we enter a shoe store, where Mohammed, who has lived at Porte de Montreuil since 1989, is leaning on his elbow. This former retired surveyor takes a dim view of the construction that is about to come out of the ground. “This garden is going to be for drug dealers. It’s not valid. There are too many roads around. Do you think moms are going to go there? “, he loose, concerned about the drug traffic which prevails in the garden not far.
Opinions rather divided therefore, for a project that divides. Will the Paris City Hall amend its idea? “We can move, yes, says Jacques Baudrier. We are going to stop tree cutting as much as possible. For the flea market, it is true that there is a need to review the project. But the bridge-building cannot be suppressed. Otherwise we take it for three years, we will not have finished before the end of the mandate, ”worries the elected official. Same determination with Emmanuel Grégoire, the First Deputy: “The project is not yet fully finalized, it can still be examined, but this district needs to be transformed. »