They were winners of the “Reinventing Paris” program in 2016. This Friday, the Paris City Hall, through the voice of the Ecologists group, announces the abandonment of the “Mille Arbres” and “Multistrates” bridge building projects. Originally presented as “floating villages above the ring road”, these projects were to materialize in buildings on slabs covering the ring road near Porte Maillot.
The “Thousand Trees” project provided for the construction of a building-bridge with an area of 60,000 square meters and ten stories high. The structure was to accommodate offices, housing, shops but also restaurants, a hotel or even a center for children. The name of the project came from the fact that a thousand trees were to be planted on the terrace.
Permits suspended by the courts in 2021
Three times smaller, the “Multistrate City” consisted of a wooden bridge building with green terraces offering housing, including social housing, shops, offices and a “farm in the sky”.
But already in 2021, the administrative court, under pressure from environmental defense associations, had canceled the two projects, because of their consequences on the health of those who should live and work there. Justice then feared that the construction of these buildings would cause too high a concentration of nitrogen dioxide and fine particles emitted by cars at the entrances and exits of the tunnel.
The Porte de Montreuil on borrowed time
But these suspensions did not yet sign the death warrant for two bridge buildings, justice only encouraging the city and the project leaders to review their copy. It is now done with the confirmation that the City of Paris waives appeal in cassation to obtain authorizations.
If he is still breathing, their counterpart at the Porte de Montreuil, which has divided the municipal majority for several months, is on borrowed time. Indeed, according to the group of Ecologists, it appears that “nothing in the PLU now imposes to carry out the Nexity project, opening the possibility of carrying out another project in connection with the residents, associations and fleas”, they also put in danger.