In Paris, the neighbors’ war is declared against the future Saint-Vincent-de-Paul eco-district

Future zero carbon neighborhood

Disused for eleven years, the site of the former Saint-Vincent-de-Paul hospital, located in the 14e district of Paris, must, by 2025, see the birth of a new district on 3.4 hectares. The City of Paris, in charge of the project, imagined a vast “Sober and inclusive” retaining the current architecture of the place and its buildings (which will be renovated): it will consist mainly of housing (600), as well as a nursery, a school, a gymnasium and shops. The Town Hall promises that this new district will meet standards “Zero carbon, zero waste, zero discharge”.

Old Apollinaire district

This transformation project has for several years provoked the opposition of some of the residents. September 3, a column published in Le Figaro and signed by 40 personalities from the world of culture (Stéphane Bern, Philippe and Sylvain Tesson, Thomas Dutronc…) called on the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo. The collective is worried about the planned destruction of the “Apollinaire, Picasso and Hemingway neighborhood! “, highlighting the risk of excessive densification and the lack of planned green spaces.

Secular motherhood

Devoted to the collection and care of abandoned children in Paris for more than two centuries, the Saint-Vincent-de-Paul hospital became a veritable pediatric establishment and a maternity hospital in the 1930s. Definitively closed in 2011 despite the significant mobilization of the staff and patients, it has been the scene of two scandals during its last years of activity: in 2005, 351 fetuses were found in the death chamber, they had been kept since the end of the 1970s for no scientific reason; and in 2008, a little boy died as a result of a prescription error. Services have been moved to Cochin and Necker.

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Emergency welcome land

These last years, The Big Neighbors, a kind of solidarity village, was installed on the site and had a concert hall, a bar, restaurants, local shops, association premises and an emergency accommodation center (CHU). The success of this urban diversity experiment, carried out between 2015 and 2020 by the Aurore association, prompted the Town Hall to make it permanent: an emergency reception center with 90 places and a relay house with 26 housing units must be installed in the future eco-district.

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