Plaine de Sarliève, at the southern entrance to Clermont-Ferrand. A large expanse of intensive monoculture, scarred by the A75 and eaten away by urbanization. In ten to fifteen years, it will have been profoundly transformed. Instead of this vast void: market gardening, orchards, chicken and sheep farms, walking paths lined with trees and hedges, awareness workshops open to the public…
Former regional capital – a status it lost in 2016 with the advent of large regions –, Clermont-Ferrand has become the 1er January 2018, a metropolis, i.e. an urban community of 21 municipalities bringing together nearly 290,000 inhabitants. A pivotal moment that led Olivier Bianchi, mayor (PS) of the city since 2014 and president of Clermont-Auvergne Métropole since its creation, to turn to the rich university soil of his city, to forge a new identity. “Elected officials increasingly need to be fed expertise, emphasizes the aedile. Research makes it possible to reinforce what is of the order of intuition, it brings us solid, substantial, objectified lighting. »
“Without the researchers, we would not have been interested in this type of territory on the fringes of the metropolis. » Grégory Bernard, deputy mayor of Clermont-Ferrand
“Without the researchers, we would not have been interested in this type of territory on the fringes of the metropolis”, recognizes Grégory Bernard, deputy mayor and metropolitan councilor delegated to the PLUI (local intermunicipal urban plan) and development operations. “As the metropolis was taking off, the insights from research clearly oriented us and pushed us to take another step: they made us realize that we could forge the metropolis by focusing on quality of life and resilience. of the territory, rather than focusing on large-scale projects, to develop an attractiveness policy at all costs. »
Urban farming
On the plain of Sarliève, the first trees and hedges were planted on the initiative of the Sarlieve Farm. A young cooperative society of collective interest (SCIC) – with which elected officials will be associated – which strives to meet the challenge of relocating food, while preserving the environment and stopping the nibbling of agricultural land . This one was entrusted, by a family owner of grounds on the plain, 80 hectares where it will develop plots of organic agriculture with carriers of agricultural projects in breakdown of land. “We want to be able to influence the development of surrounding land that remains urbanizable,” insists Corinne Dupasquier, retired volunteer, administrator of Terre de liens Auvergne, one of the three associations at the origin of the Farm. The location, ideally located, whets the appetite of promoters.
The land development model that the Sarliève Farm seeks to promote, the metropolis intends to extend to the rest of the plain as well as to all the agricultural areas bordering the community. For this, it will create its own SCIC, which will help the various municipalities concerned to buy land and install market gardeners there.
“Knowing that 2 hectares of market gardening is at least one job, which therefore potentially creates several thousand jobs”, insists Grégory Bernard. Also, the city will again rely on a research project of the UMR Territories, “Ferments”, led by geographers Salma Loudiyi and Marie Houdart. This program, explains the first, aims to follow and analyze the different stages and levers of the development of the Sarliève Farm as well as its difficulties and controversies.
“Even if there may be debate when elected officials come to concretize it, translate it into public policies, one thing is certain: while revealing the potential for urban agriculture, research has pushed us to change our focus on the question of zero artificialisation, notes Grégory Bernard. Because going beyond the only quantitative approach to the subject, it questions the use, the valuation of these parts of territory that for a long time we only thought of building, to make them supports of human activity other than ‘urbanization. »
Metropolitan margins
And the potential exists within the metropolis: some 250 hectares of land would be in agricultural decline, not to mention 250 hectares of industrial wasteland. “These are all spaces that are sometimes accessible, often still closed and hidden from sight and practice, which carry with them important issues of reconquest and agricultural relocation. And which could be enhanced by reconciling agricultural practice and recreational metropolitan practices,” notes Géraldine Texier, teacher-researcher at the Resources UMR of the Clermont School of Architecture.
The metropolis will create, around the Les Vergnes residential towers adjoining the Bédat plain, an agricultural farm intended to be a lever for employment and integration.
With his colleague David Robin, they worked on the metropolitan margins, in particular on the plain of Bédat, located on the edge of the northern working-class district. Their investigations led the metropolis to include this other plain in the PLUI, destined to become a “agricultural, natural and urban park”, where you can walk, play sports, cultivate a garden, do market gardening.
Today, this landlocked area between the railway line and a logistics zone mixes shared gardens, cereal and market garden plots, space for travellers, bulky waste collection center… Despite the proximity to nature and the Bédat river, walking walking there is very difficult and deprives the inhabitants of an immense territory to cover. The metropolis, which now intends to enhance this territory, will start by creating, around the Les Vergnes residential towers adjoining the plain, an agricultural farm called to be a lever for employment and integration.
The reconquest of the Saint-Jean district, in the heart of Clermont, is more advanced. This vast triangle of 40 hectares has been partly fallow since the closure of municipal slaughterhouses and several companies in the meat industry. While it hosts various economic activities, as well as social and private rental housing, the urban environment is unappealing to say the least. This district, which the metropolis wants to make the standard for the sustainable city of tomorrow, was itself a playground for the school of architecture to rebuild the city on itself. His research has made it possible to pose the fields of possibilities, on low carbon construction and in short circuit.
The first element to come out of the ground, about to be completed, is the future Saint-Jean high school, which will open in September 2022. Made of wood from the Massif Central and insulated with straw from Limagne (a vast natural territory in Auvergne), it produces more energy than it consumes. Must follow a nearby gymnasium with the same qualities. All surrounded by a large nature park and cycle paths.
At a time when the Clermont metropolis aims to become the European capital of culture – a project dear to mayor Olivier Bianchi – “by forging a territorial narrative that engages the citizen, notes David Robin, the reconquest of places to open them to the public, the reintroduction of the landscape, of nature, so that pedestrian continuities can be established, contribute to the creation of a cultural territory”.
This article was produced as part of a partnership with Popsu, the observation platform for urban projects and strategies.