At least 1.4 billion euros. This is what should cost the City of Paris the largest development operation carried out in the capital since Haussmann, the concerted development zone (ZAC) Paris Rive gauche. The impressive invoice is provided by the Regional Chamber of Accounts (CRC), which has just screened the project.
His report, which must be presented to elected Parisians in early July, does not identify any irregularity and only makes a few accounting remarks. But it allows for the first time to have an almost complete and updated view of this colossal project. And an estimate of its cost. To the 1.4 billion euros mentioned, it will however be necessary to add the cost of the development of the last district concerned, the Bruneseau sector, supposed to reconnect Paris with Ivry-sur-Seine (Val-de-Marne). Under pressure from environmentalists, Anne Hidalgo’s team gave up at the beginning of the year to build very high towers there. However, the overhaul of the file makes “difficult to assess (…) the financial results of the operation”, indicates the report.
Railway wasteland
Started more than thirty years ago, the development of the ZAC Paris Rive gauche consists of transforming the 130 hectares of railway and industrial wasteland wedged between the Gare d’Austerlitz and the ring road into a real piece of town with offices, housing and shops. When the ZAC was officially launched in 1991, the idea was to create on this strip of 13e district on the banks of the Seine an office district around the very large library desired by François Mitterrand. A mini-Defense in the east of Paris.
At the end of the 1990s, a university center was added, in particular to allow asbestos removal from Jussieu
The project should then be completed in 2006. Today, it is accepted that the new deadline, set for 2028, will probably have to be postponed again to 2032. Several reasons explain these considerable delays. The project first evolved. At the end of the 1990s, a university center was added, in particular to allow asbestos removal from Jussieu. In 2001, the new mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, introduced a greater proportion of housing, including 50% social housing, diversifying jobs and activity. The operation was also “faced with many uncertainties, such as the project to set up the Paris court there, finally carried out in Batignolles”northwest of the capital, recalls the report.
Above all, the progress of the project depends closely on the capacity of the SNCF to release its railway land. However, certain rights-of-way, such as those in the Gare d’Austerlitz district, were only made available after a delay. The development of the Bruneseau south sector, at the foot of the Duo towers, remains linked to the relocation of the Corail train maintenance workshop. Finally, as part of the work consists of building a slab above the railway tracks on which the trains are still running, it was necessary, and still must, to deal with the extremely restricted periods of night work to limit the impact on travellers.
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