At the end of 2021, the “beautify your neighborhood” operation will begin in the capital. Unsurprisingly, given the program of the mayor PS Anne Hidalgo, the program aims to “vegetate, pedestrianize the city”, explained Jacques Baudrier, the deputy (PCF) for public construction. But planting a hundred trees in each neighborhood and having more peaceful and accessible streets require, above all, work.
The City of Paris wants at all costs “to avoid poisoning the lives of Parisians with a succession of poorly coordinated projects,” said the first deputy (PS) Emmanuel Grégoire Friday during a press point. A new “philosophy” has therefore been adopted and will consist of “concentrating in specific windows, in the same place, the classic works” of the city, of the concessionaires (maintenance of water, gas, district heating, telephone networks) and ” major projects “already known, in order to then offer several years of tranquility to residents, assured Emmanuel Grégoire.
Hidalgo, criticized for the number of projects in progress
Among the 15,000 annual projects that the capital’s roads undergo – as much as the buildings -, according to Jacques Baudrier, 80% are carried out by the dozen of the City’s concessionaires (RATP, Enedis, GRDF, CPCU, etc.) and 20% by the municipality itself. In Anne Hidalgo’s first term (2014-2020), “each of the players, including the concessionaires, defined an annual work program”, which could lead to different work “four years in a row” for the same sidewalk, recalls the elected Communist.
From now on, “there are 17 districts of Paris where there is a lot of work at the moment and there will be no more for five years”, he summarizes. An envelope of 5.5 million euros – 7 million for the twenty districts defined as “popular” – is planned for each of the 83 Parisian districts, cut out on the basis of a scale of 30,000 inhabitants.
Public consultations to define priority projects began at the end of 2020. The district mayors then chose their first district in which to concentrate this work, validated in a public meeting. At the end of her first term, Anne Hidalgo, criticized for the number of projects underway in the capital, had recognized a “real embarrassment”. This did not prevent her from being widely re-elected in June 2020, before launching in September in the presidential race.