83 winning projects for My Ideas for My Neighborhood
Eight million euros. It’s the budget attributed to this initiative of the town hall of Toulouse. After a stage of proposal of ideas as well as a stage of vote in October 2022, the elected officials announced this Friday, December 2 the results of “My ideas for my neighborhoodlaunched on June 28, 2021.
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“Ecologically dominant” ideas
Each inhabitant of the 20 neighborhoods of Toulouse was able to vote, throughout the month of October, for the ideas they would like to see implemented in their residential neighborhood. To do this, the town hall had launched a call for ideas in 2021. On the table: a budget of eight million euros, or “eight times more than the participatory budget of the previous mandate”, explains the mayor of Toulouse. The people of Toulouse were then able to give their suggestions. A total of 1,644 ideas emerged. Jean-Luc Moudenc welcomes the emergence of “ecologically dominant” ideas:
I am happy because the people of Toulouse have been in agreement with the municipal team since 75% of the projects have concerned this theme of ecological and energy transition and have sometimes constituted an extension of major plans that we have launched such as that of 100,000 trees or to the development of the Express Vélo network.
So with all these ideas, the municipality wanted there to be “at least two projects and no less than 300,000 euros invested per district”. This decision is to guarantee a certain equality between neighborhoods and at the same time “give a flexibility of two million euros to allow freedom of choice”, as Jean-Luc Moudenc explains.
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A long process of selecting ideas
The votes that took place from October 3 to 31, 2022 then revealed 83 projects for the Pink City. Insistent elected officials say they “remained neutral” when picking these. Certain projects were obviously not retained by the elected officials because of the large number ofideas proposed by Toulouse residents and sometimes for reasons of technical and financial decline. After this first technical sorting, there were only 791 projects left to submit to the votes. “A lot of ideas”, specify the elected officials.
To facilitate the vote, the municipality has decided to limit the choices to ten projects per district “so that it is more credible” as explained by Olivier Arsac, assistant to the coordination of the district mayors, of citizen participation. But they are not the ones who did the sorting to keep a certain “neutrality”. Olivier Arsac explains how it works:
This choice was made by the citizen workshops, in particular the citizen workshop ‘living environment’ when the project did not have an environmental connotation or by the ‘ecology by district’ workshop when it was. And they are the ones who put in order what they wanted to bring to the votes of Toulouse residents according to the interest in the district”.
83 winners selected by Toulouse residents
This Friday, December 2, the winners are finally known! 83 ideas were selected by Toulouse residents. 4,532 voters participated in this participatory process. And the top 3 projects selected are the following :
- In the district of Busca, 492 votes propose the establishment of a cycle path on the avenue Saint-Exupéry for an amount of 200,000 euros.
- In the Toulouse hyper-centre district, 467 votes want to see dedicated bicycle and pedestrian lanes appear for a budget of 150,000 euros.
- Then still in the same district, the Place du Capitole is subject to a great discussion on the revegetation of this one. 358 votes would be for it to be more wooded or green for a cost of 200,000 euros.
Thus 83 ideas revolve around the following themes: nature in the city (48), eco-mobility (15), waste and recycling (3), energy (4) and living environment (13). To carry out these numerous projects, the town hall has set up four citizen workshops with 2,707 applications received. These workshops will be used to mobilize the inhabitants, to inform them and to “co-build” with them.
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An important step for the town hall
The implementation of this participatory approach is for elected officials “an extension of their commitments”. Some steps of the opposition came back on the table during the press conference presented this Friday morning. Nicolas Misiakmunicipal councilor delegated to the coordination of citizens’ conventions for ecology in town by district, recommended to make an update:
It is important, I believe, to look at our participation process because when I look at the news and see the green flags called ‘green’ at the moment, we realize that the way in which ecology is made supported by part of the opposition, it is to hang on to poles to block traffic, to stick to the ring road, to descend on the Stade Toulousain during a match…”.
This way of acting in the name of citizenship, Nicolas Misiak denounces a paradox: “We are in the outlaw and there is no consultation of citizens on the subject and vice versa”. A comparison joined by Jean-Luc Moudenc who specifies: “This is the whole difference between ecology co-constructed with citizens and a certain ecology imposed by the coup de force of certain politicized associations”.
Thus, the results of the participatory vote are now available by here. It should be noted that Jean-Luc Moudenc undertakes to implement them within the next two years.
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