A building in the Alma-gare district threatened with demolition, on April 19, 2023 in Roubaix, in the North (AFP / FRANCOIS LO PRESTI)
“We will not leave”: in Roubaix, in the priority district of Alma-gare, a collective is resisting the planned demolition of hundreds of social housing units, built in the 1980s following a historic mobilization of the inhabitants , co-authors of a “reference” layout.
“To raze these buildings, built according to the wishes of the inhabitants 40 years ago, it is incredible”, rages the president of the collective Florian Vertriest, 29, in front of a small building with elegant facades decorated with mosaics, arcades and heads of animals, by the architect Gilles Neveux.
For several months, the sports educator has been chaining meetings, demonstrations and citizen meetings. In this district which votes little, the fight mobilizes: more than 200 inhabitants of all generations at the last appointments.
At stake, the demolition of 480 housing units, mainly social, provided for by the “new urban renewal plan” (NPRU), drawn up since 2015 in particular by the town hall of Roubaix and the European metropolis of Lille.
Florian Vertriest, president of the collective opposed to the demolition of the Alma-gare district, on April 19, 2023 in Roubaix, in the North (AFP / FRANCOIS LO PRESTI)
The site, which also provides for 390 rehabilitations, 90 constructions and various social and public facilities, would drive out a thousand of the current inhabitants.
The objective of the project, estimated at 133 million euros, is to “de-densify” the Alma-gare, which suffers from a “very degraded” social park, “social” problems, “insecurity and of deal”, according to the impact study. And to “diversify” the habitat, to promote “mixing”.
– “Iconic” counter-project –
“It’s chasing the poor,” accuses Eric Mouveaux, a 58-year-old social worker. Located between a new eco-district, a university campus and a start-up incubator, “Alma-gare does the job”, ironically this member of the collective. He denounces a “simulacrum of consultation”, with plans “already recorded”.
However, resulting from an “emblematic” urban struggle in the 1970s/1980s, Alma is “a reference” in terms of urban planning, citizen participation and city policy, underlines Julien Talpin, researcher in political science at CNRS.
A building in the Alma-gare district threatened with demolition, on April 19, 2023 in Roubaix, in the North (AFP / FRANCOIS LO PRESTI)
At the time, faced with the decline of textiles, Roubaix already wanted to demolish this district made up of courtyards, these workers’ houses grouped around a courtyard, deemed unhealthy.
To save their “traditional sociability”, the residents organize themselves. Supported, within a “popular workshop of town planning” by architects and town planners, they impose a counter-project: small buildings connected by places and passageways, hailed by several international prizes.
But crisis and unemployment catch up with the island, while the town hall, moved to the right, withdraws subsidies, and concentrates there, with the donors, the most precarious, says Mr. Talpin.
At the beginning of 2000, corridors and gardens considered “criminogenic” because invested by the deal, are largely walled up, bristling with railings and now strewn with garbage.
We “drank tea, played football”, regrets the collective, which denounces sabotage, and “total abandonment” of donors, especially “from the NPRU”. This winter, many families went months without hot water.
– “Moratorium” –
One of the main donors, Lille Métropole Habitat, recognizes “old dysfunctions”, and “management problems” linked in particular to insecurity, but ensures that it invests “massively”. According to him, it is the acceleration of the NPRU that will “improve” the lives of the inhabitants.
The Roubais municipal opposition, like the president of the town planners of Hauts-de-France Myriam Cau, calls on the contrary for a “moratorium”, to preserve a “collective intangible heritage”.
A building in the Alma-gare district threatened with demolition, on April 19, 2023 in Roubaix, in the North (AFP / FRANCOIS LO PRESTI)
The mobilized inhabitants want to replay history with a counter-project, which would safeguard their “bonds of solidarity” and “revive” the passageways and common spaces.
A first workshop will be organized in May with urban planners and architects, including Marcellino Saab, associate director of Ausia, one of the agencies involved in the previous project. He intends to oppose the demolitions in court, and judges these buildings “perfectly rehabilitable”.
The opponents also want to “quantify the carbon and human balance” of the demolitions, while, according to them, 50,000 social housing units are missing in the MEL.
But for the DVD mayor Guillaume Delbar, “the signed, contractual framework” is “not negotiable”. “Developed for six years with study firms, concerted” since 2017, the redevelopment is “one of the least demolishers” in France and collects a broad “consensus”, he assures.
“Only 7%” of households want to “stay absolutely”, when many others “ask to leave”, he insists.
According to the National Agency for Urban Renewal, which finances 453 projects in France, changes are still possible, if communities so request. But the arbitrations must not delay any longer to maintain “the overall balance of the calendar”.
© 2023 AFP
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