“The applicant associations are not justified in requesting the cancellation of the deliberation of the municipality of Pessac of September 27, 2022 as it approves the urban renewal project of the Saige district. »
This Wednesday, December 18, the administrative court of Bordeaux thus rejected the request of the National Confederation of Housing of Gironde and the Association of tenants of Formanoir against the city of Pessac. The associations hoped to stop the Saige Urban Renovation Project (PRU) under the pretext of a lack of consultation.
“Social diversity”
In a press release released today, the City considers that the judgment supports its project and that of its partners Domofrance and Bordeaux Métropole:
“We hope that the fruitless controversies are behind us, there is still a long way to go before the transformation of Saige is completed, in 2032, and we need all the goodwill,” declares Franck Raynal, the mayor of Pessac.
“More than a simple rehabilitation, this project aims to profoundly transform the neighborhood by allowing social diversity, the only lever to avoid the “ghettoization” which threatens,” we can read in the press release.
While the CNL highlighted a consultation according to which a majority of residents in the neighborhood were hostile to demolitions, the Pessac town hall argued that the survey conducted by Domofrance, prior to rehousing, “revealed in 2023 that 80% of residents consulted wanted to leave their turn.” She affirms that the population was involved in the project “from the preliminary phases, through numerous public meetings and consultations, to co-construct the future of their neighborhood”.
240 million euros, 373 fewer housing units
For a cost of close to 240 million euros, compared to 140 initially, the operation plans to rehabilitate 1,003 social housing units and “de-densify” the neighborhood by demolishing three towers representing 373 other housing units, or even 482 if a fourth is transformed into offices. and student rooms. Jean-Philippe Vassal, Pritzker Architecture Prize, had called for the rehabilitation of the complex.
On October 22, in a letter to Christine Bost, president of Bordeaux Métropole, which is financing the project to the tune of 46.14 million euros, Bordeaux architect Christophe Hutin also denounced this project and its support by the ANRU ( national urban renewal agency).
He affirms that an “alternative to demolition is possible”, citing the example of the rehabilitation of buildings G, H and I of the Grand Parc, “hailed by the Mies van der Rohe Award (contemporary architecture prize of the European Union).
“Housing demolitions have become an economic aberration (demolishing and rebuilding housing will always cost more than rehabilitating it) as well as an ecological one (the carbon footprint of the Saige project, which we had studied, is catastrophic), writes Christophe Hutin . They are also a form of violence for the residents who suffer them. »
