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Thierry Roussin
Published on
Dec 29 2024 at 10:48 a.m.
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The project is enormous for L'Aigle (Orne) and before moving thousands of m³ of earth, it deeply shakes the municipal opposition and local residents. No less than 176 apartments divided into eleven buildings, 9 individual houses and one 80-unit senior residence should grow on land at the top of rue Clemenceau. When completed in 10 years, the project of more than 250 housing units could bring 500 to 600 inhabitants more to the Aiglone demographic.
A project different from the original
A boon for the City. For the opposition and local residents, however, this project is a total heresy and Serge Delavallée tried to demonstrate this during a recent municipal council meeting.
What concerns us is that first of all, an information meeting with local residents was organized in the spring for a completely different project since it involved 70 to 80 individual plots.
Nothing to do with the one seemingly looming on the soon-to-be blocked horizon of the inhabitants of this still quiet neighborhood. The leader of the opposition notes that “the public inquiry for the local intercommunal urban planning plan made no mention of such a project, but only a subdivision of individual houses”.
“The city is in danger”
For this “disproportionate” project, Serge Delavallée wonders if “the reflection was well carried out? The creation of a neighborhood, which will accommodate 5 to 10% additional residents, requires looking at the essential facilities and services that will need to be provided.” The elected official is surprised that we are not first thinking of “consolidating existing neighborhoods, filling in gaps, exploiting wastelands to be restructured…”.
The opposition does not hesitate to say “that with this choice of method, project and architecture, the city is in danger”, before regretting “that at no time, Mr. Mayor, did you see fit to tell us about it. What are we for? »
Philippe Van-Hoorne. “Without this project, we have not finished closing classes”
Arriving during the various questions of the last municipal council, the file of the subdivision of rue Clemenceau forced the mayor to reveal himself. “We have several private subdivision projects and this is proof of the interest in our city. We meet a lot of promoters who want to come to L’Aigle.”
Philippe Van-Hoorne mentions in passing that “we have been hearing for a long time that one day or another something will happen on this ground”. This day has arrived. “The developer, SCI Timsol (Editor’s note, Crosne, 91), came to see us with a project for buildings of 4 to 5 floors and we told him no, even if in fact he was free to do so.”
– “At the beginning, he wanted to go to a nursing home”
After working meetings with the relevant town planning services and those of the State who made a lot of observations, the project moved forward. “He wanted to build a nursing home, but we told him no again because we want to preserve that of the hospital center. He fell back on a senior residence project.” The mayor believes “that with all the stakeholders concerned, we tried to work as far upstream as possible in order to consider all the issues. The technicians have given their approval, it’s up to us to trust them.”
Philippe Van-Hoorne, however, knows that despite their skills, specialists can sometimes fail, and he sites the greenway along the Risle as well as works on the Risle that need to be redone. He considers that this project with buildings of two floors maximum and a landscaped environment “is acceptable, even if I am aware that it will change the daily lives of the inhabitants of this sector”.
But there is a greater cause than all this, the future of the city. Just that. “We absolutely need to recover residents, young people and retirees alike. If we don't succeed, we will have fewer children, fewer classes in primary school but also in middle schools and high schools. We will also have less operating funding from the State and we will be in a negative spiral from which it will be very difficult to escape. Without this project, we have not finished closing classes.”
Faced with the elimination of two buildings in Madeleine and two others in Vaux, we must reconstitute an offer that meets the needs of the population. This is intended to complete that constituted by the rehabilitation of the former gendarmerie, the Bois Robert and Chailloué rue de Chennebrun housing estates. The target audiences are probably different.
– Grow housing… and jobs
Philippe Van-Hoorne also suggests that we must anticipate “because today, with the law against the artificialization of land, companies can no longer set up where they want. Here we are fortunate to have land available to accommodate them and we can already sense this tendency to refocus on areas like the Pays de L'Aigle.”
A good-sized company would also be in contact with the Cdc to set up. “But when she asked us if we had enough to accommodate 150 people, we had to say no,” regretfully quotes the mayor, also vice-president of the Cdc in charge of the economy.
So he makes a bet, perhaps a foolish one. He cultivates the project of growing housing and new businesses at the same time. An ambition for businesses, for schools…
A collective of around fifty families
This file, investigated “on the sly” according to the opposition, really pisses off local residents. Even before uniting into a collective of around fifty families from Clemenceau and La Mérillière streets, residents have already filed an appeal against this project.
“First of all, we want to make it clear that the goal is not to prohibit the construction of housing in L'Aigle. We know the city needs it for, if only for the schools. It’s about returning to the first project of 70 to 80 individual houses.”
“Ten years of construction, ten years of disruption”
This would make sense since this land adjoins the Domaine de la Garenne housing estate, at the top of rue de la Garenne.
Moreover, we wonder why the entrance and exit to the new district are planned at the corner of rue Clemenceau and rue L'Horloge, when access from the rue de la Garenne side seems better secure.
Rue Clemenceau is a narrow road where, given the parked cars, it is sometimes difficult to move around peacefully. “Adding the road traffic of all these new residents to this street will make it unlivable,” argues a resident who is also worried about the duration of the work. “We are being told about ten years of construction, that means ten years of disruption with heavy goods vehicles coming and going.”
We sometimes have up to 50 cm of water in the cellars
Stunned to see that the Town Planning Commission of the Town of L'Aigle never met, the residents are just as stunned to see that the project does not have a retention basin. “In the event of heavy rain, it is sometimes possible to have up to 50 cm of water in the cellars. With the artificialization of this land located higher than rue Clemenceau, the worst is to be feared if no retention system is planned,” storms a long-time resident.
The mayor is wrong when he says that only 21% of the land will be waterproofed. If we look closely at the plan, with the roads in particular we are closer to 50% in reality
The fear is that the rainwater network on rue Clemenceau, a steeply sloping street, will not be sufficient to swallow this water which will flow down from the housing estate.
To avoid a depreciation of their property by 15 to 20%, to save a terraced hedge with a remarkable lime tree, to avoid deteriorating road safety, local residents are determined to fight. “All of this is going to end in legal action and there are a lot of angles to attack. We’re not going to give up.”
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