Renovation, energy saving, ecology… On the occasion of the international consultation “Neighborhoods of tomorrow” aimed at improving the living environment of the inhabitants of ten pilot territories, a look back at some projects designed as experimental laboratories.
Today, it is a vast area of 5.5 hectares which adjoins the priority Europe-Schweitzer district. Only two short kilometers separate it from the flowery half-timbered facades of the center of Colmar. The Plaine Pasteur is today a flat, bare area, where baseball and football are played, and where families picnic in fine weather… Hardly any more. The locals call it “the field”. In summer, it is more reminiscent of plowed land than a green pasture. The site was never built, but the soil was depleted by trampling.
In the eyes of Odile Uhlrich-Mallet, first deputy of the city, if the site seems “desert”, it is also because it is underinvested and what is happening “too little.” Located in a strategic location, it could nevertheless be a link between the historic heart of Colmar and the Europe-Schweitzer district, which accommodates 14% of the city’s inhabitants in its towers and workers’ pavilions. So, after having greened the surroundings of the cathedral, the municipal team now wishes to devote itself to its second major mandate project: transforming the Plaine Pasteur into an “Alsatian-style Central Park”. One more step in the renovation of the district, which has been underway for fifteen years with the support of the National Agency for Urban Renewal (Anru): 467 housing units have been demolished and 862 rehabilitated. But this time, it is also about creating a place for all Colmarians.
“Two worlds that ignore each other”
On paper, the ambition appeals to Stanislas Estival, director of a social action association, which supports nearly 250 young people each year. He welcomes the idea of helping to erase the “symbolic border” materialized by the railway line, between “two worlds that ignore each other” : a rather bourgeois city center that looks like a postcard, and the QPV, where 49% of residents live below the poverty line. “It is a real political choice to maintain 5.5 hectares close to the city center as a green public space. The easy solution would have been to market this land to make it into housing. notes Claire LEMPER, head of the city’s political department.
To think about this new green lung, the town hall (led by Eric Straumann, elected by Les Républicains) launched a competition of ideas last year with landscaping agencies; she also appealed to residents through a questionnaire and a participatory workshop. The icing on the cake, the selection for the “Neighborhoods of Tomorrow” consultation reinforces the municipal ambition to go beyond the ultra-local project: “It is not a question of creating green space at the foot of buildings,” but to design developments which create an impact on the quality of life, on biodiversity and on the management of rainwater, beyond the scale of the district, we specify at the town hall.
“Ecological awareness”
Rodolphe Raguccia, associate landscaper at the Grue agency, who worked on the competition of ideas and who is applying for the international consultation, defends the importance of creating wooded corridors beyond the perimeter of the project. “Reweaving plant continuities is essential. It’s positive for biodiversity, but also for the simple continuity of the shadow.” The latter is important when the thermometer rises – this is common with the semi-continental climate of Colmar. Furthermore, it diagnoses a site “introvert”, despite its views of the Vosges and the surrounding hills. It is therefore necessary, in his eyes, “to work to reopen it to its environment, to make monumental entrances so that we see it more”, explains Rodolphe Raguccia. The observation is similar to that of Guénaëlle Humbert, landscaper from the Ghau agency: the Plaine Pasteur is too little linked to the district which surrounds it.
In fact, it is used much less than it could be. Many buildings turn their backs on it, such as the woman-mother-child hospital center, of which only the technical part, not accessible to the public, adjoins the park. Same thing for the mosque, separated from the site by a barrier. The agency therefore proposed a project that reconnects the edges of the park to its environment, to increase its attendance. She also recommends the creation of basins and valleys to store rainwater, in order to broaden the plant palette. Stanislas Estival, head of the Colmar specialist prevention association, approves this project for an increased presence of nature in the immediate vicinity of large complexes. But make no mistake: “We must deconstruct the idea that there is no ecological awareness in priority neighborhoods.” He points out the neighborhood’s lush shared gardens, which he sees as expressing a real interest and knowledge of plants. “I am not sure that in the neighboring housing estates and villages, the openness towards nature is stronger,” he notes. Enough to confirm the interest in promoting access to this future large wooded park for as many people as possible, residents of the social park or not. Ten million euros are planned by the city. To be continued.
Biodiversity to the rescue
Previous summers have provided proof of this, if it was still lacking: cities are not adapted to heatwave episodes. Trying to reduce temperatures at the building level alone makes no sense; it is also at the level of public spaces that the future is at stake. Vegetation plays an essential role here: it provides shade, it creates evapotranspiration and it is a refuge for urban biodiversity… Who could say better? However, increasing the number of trees is far from being the only lever to activate. Pooling tree pits, for example, allows roots to develop and helps restore the water cycle. This also promotes several strata of vegetation (low, medium, high), conducive to biodiversity. In many city policy priority districts (QPV), these actions are particularly valuable. Large complexes are in fact subject to the effects of urban heat islands, because the ground there is largely impermeable (burying parking lots is expensive, so we placed them on the surface). But there is still room for maneuver: the buildings are rather spaced out and the areas dedicated to cars can be partially used. These neighborhoods have “the qualities of their defects”, observes Franck Boutté, Grand Prix de l’urbanisme 2022. Compared to dense city centers, there is often more “emptiness” to reverse the situation. The fact remains that today, regrets the town planner, the public space of priority neighborhoods of city policy is “a bit forgotten” by public policies.
