Toulouse: ecologists urged to “densify the city in all districts, even in Côte Pavée”
By Guillaume Laurent
Published on
“Toulousans want the left and ecology, Jean-Luc Moudenc cannot continue to deny it”. Ten days after the Legislative, the leader of the Toulouse ecologist, solidarity and citizen group (TESC) at the town hall, Anthony Maurice, did not shy away from his pleasure after the election of “four out of eight Nupes deputies in the Metropolis”, including the ecologist Christine Arrighi on the 9e constituency. A little “personal pleasure” which satisfies him just as much as to note that “the LR candidates supported by Jean-Luc Moudenc were sharply beaten in the first round. To support the Macronist candidates for the second, he saw fit to take up the refrain of fear of the far left that we knew well in the Municipalities, with his gutter campaign. But it’s a new failure for him,” he said.
Considering that “the people of Toulouse have massively rejected his political project”, Antoine Maurice believes that the tenant of the Capitol “is in a fragile situation, with an alliance of the rights”. Two days before the last session of the municipal council before the summer break, Friday, his group deplored Wednesday, June 29 “directions in reverse of ecological and social emergencies”, and called for a long time on the mayor to green his policy. Anthology.
Tisséo: for a return of the annual subscription to 100 euros for young people
On the front of transportation first of all, Isabella Robust gave a layer of it in the face of the increase in Tisséo’s prices at the start of the school year: “In the period of social crisis that we are living through, it is strange to decide, a year after the last increase, to practice one news “. An increase which, she laments, “will penalize the weakest”. In favor of “solidarity pricing”, the elected ecologists who were also called upon to put a key measure from the Cohen years back on the agenda: “The subscription at 100 euros per year for all young people under the age of 26”.
“Jean-Luc Moudenc is the only elected official in France to decide that in the middle of inflation, we increase prices”, asserts the ex-socialist Romain Cujives. At the controls of a “Late Metropolis”, the first magistrate would also be, according to him, “the only elected representative in France who, in the face of climate change, does not take the measure of what is happening… And yet, he had made promises in the matter”.
“A train that set off at high speed in the 80s, which will smash”
Can Toulouse still sacrifice non-artificialized spaces to erect new constructions there, even while ensuring their “ecological compensation”? For these elected officials, it’s no. In addition to the construction of the Atlanta technocentre, they deplore the urbanization of Paléficat, which has become a real “zone of tension”, according to Romain Cujives. “This is the last place in Toulouse where we really have agricultural land and non-artificialized land”, observes the elected official. “We must preserve these last places of greenery and agriculture, stop artificializing the soil, and rebuild the city on the city”.
Beyond the very symbolic case of Paléficat, Hélène Cabanes raises: “113 hectares will be artificialized on the ZAC malepere“, where so far existed “56 different species of animals”.
“We have the feeling of a train leaving at high speed in the 80s, unable to take the slightest fork and which will smash against the wall of the climate”.
“Les Chalets is one of the densest neighborhoods in Toulouse”
While according to these elected officials, it would be necessary to “assume a significant balance of power with the real estate developers”, Antoine Maurice regrets that Jean-Luc Moudenc is satisfied with the “easiest solution: that of continuing the artificialization of the soil”. How to welcome the thousands of new inhabitants who settle each year in the most attractive city in France, without urban sprawl ? A vast debate for which ecologists have decided: Toulouse must resolve itself more than ever “to densify the city”.
“Density is not a bad word”, says Helene Cabaneswho cites an iconic district of the Pink City as an example: “The Cottages, it’s one of the densest neighborhoods in Toulouse, and we live there rather well”. Romain Cujives agrees: “The housing is more dense in rue de la Concorde than in the heart of Mirail! “. For Isabelle Hardy, the eco-district of the Cartridge Factory (for many shaped under Pierre Cohen, editor’s note), is also “a working example. It’s a district served by the tram, which is starting to live well and where we are starting to have shops”.
Côte Pavée, a district too spared by densification?
According to Antoine Maurice, the majority “does not anticipate the arrival of the 3e underground line “ and “the necessary densification of certain neighborhoods, like Côte Pavée”. A sector made up of suburban housing and which, according to them, has so far slipped a little too much between the cracks…
“Building higher does not mean having 10-storey buildings in places, and individual houses in the other, but buildings of two or three more floors everywhere, including at Côte Pavée”.
Does Jean-Luc Moudenc let “the ugly city reveal itself”?
“If the houses become one or two story buildings, it’s useful densification”, continues Antoine Maurice. But for Romain Cujives, Jean-Luc Moudenc prefers to “leave the ugly town to qualify “. He points out that “two thirds of the housing that is built in Toulouse is not to house Toulouse residents, but for the purposes of tax exemption”. According to him, it is necessary at the same time to review the formats of the proposed dwellings, in order to “build larger to be able to accommodate the people of Toulouse and the people who arrive”.
The environmental group considers on this subject that Toulouse should not vampirize the population of the entire region, but on the contrary benefit medium-sized towns of its dynamism: “Jean-Luc Moudenc has abandoned the dialogue with the cities at one o’clock”, still regrets Romain Cujives.
Convinced that the municipality must “look district by district at the needs for densification”, he is not surprised for all that: “Not once since the 1980s, Jean-Luc Moudenc has not been able to anticipate the world as that he is being created. He was never ahead of his time…” And to breathe: “However, we are ready to help him”.
Haro on “the accounting management of schools” by the majority
Another hot file should be debated at the municipal council on Friday: that of public schools and nurseries. Antoine Maurice’s group will also submit a wish to this effect on Friday.
While the closure of the Port-Garaud school must be recorded on Friday, they regret that “the City has not made sure to maintain this small school adapted to the emancipation of our children”. Worried about the “accounting management of the majority” on these files, these elected respondents to “engage in a major thermal renovation plan for public buildings, schools and nurseries”. Establishments which are for many “aging” if not “dilapidated”, and which must be “debitumized”. While the students were “overheated” in the schoolyards during the last heat wave, they wanted “the generalization of oasis schools”, with “vegetation of the courses” and “development of shared gardens”. For them, the municipality must also “guarantee an ATSEM per class throughout school time, including in classes which are subject to duplication”.
This “financial logic at work” also applies to the “early childhood” sector, sigh the elected representatives of the TECS group, who call together for “massive recruitment in nurseries”.
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