LA TRIBUNE- Why did you go to the International Real Estate Professionals Market last week?
GREGORY DOUCET – Coming to Cannes for Mipim is a choice to multiply meetings with professionals and find other elected officials who come to present their city. I want to show that Lyon is a land of investment and transitions. By going to see the mayors of Hanover, Helsinki (Finland), Nantes, Lodz (Poland), Porto, Tallinn (Estonia) or Riga (Latvia), labeled, like us, by the European Commission “Cities with climate climate-neutral and smart by 2030”, it allows us to question our actions. Beyond common points such as energy efficiency, mobility or the production of renewable energies, we take the opportunity to discuss with them and the professionals of the sectors concerned. In other words, we take the opportunity to say what we do and to capture useful information and ideas.
By 2030, ie in six and a half years, you have moreover committed to ensuring that Lyon is carbon neutral on scopes 1 and 2 – direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions. Either twenty years ahead of the national target. Concretely, how do you work there?
The interest of working on it is to set a milestone that allows us to project ourselves into 2050, other than by formulating good intentions. For such a goal to be appropriated by everyone, it must be achievable. If we want to mobilize, we must respect these intermediate deadlines to measure the gaps and manage well according to the first results. It’s essential ! We have an opportunity to show that ecology concretely improves the lives of residents. With more than 500,000 inhabitants and 24,000 businesses, Lyon must bear this new responsibility. I would like this approach to bring together citizens, academics, economic circles, associations and institutional partners. Everyone can get involved in the development of their city and its adaptation to global warming.
But it is not enough to declare it, how do you transpose such an ambition into the daily life of your constituents?
We have defined guidelines for the City that are part of everyday life. In concrete terms, we have set up an investment budget of 1.2 billion euros to make these transitions a success. For example, we want to build the children’s Lyon. We already have concrete translations with the nature courses where we vegetate as a priority the courses of schools and nurseries. New uses are settling in with long-lasting arrangements because concerted with the educational community. Rather than dropping off their children and driving off once more, parents take more time to talk to each other and the children to play. A dad thanked me because he found ten minutes every morning with his son. This therefore creates links beyond security issues. To make the city of children is also to make the city for all, practicable for people with reduced mobility as for our elders.
Elected in 2020, you are also committed to restoring the City, and in particular by greening Place Bellecour. Where are you ?
We are working on the concept of a healthy city that takes care of us. Of course, we are going to revegetate massively, and in particular Place Bellecour, but for the time being, we have already stopped the artificialization of the soil. We even reversed it by regaining 3 hectares out of the 4,800 in the municipality. It’s not much, but we are now replanting open ground wherever possible, especially in the working-class districts which are the most deprived. For example, we can remove parking spaces and transform public spaces dedicated to cars into living spaces. To date, we have already doubled the rate of planting, if only to absorb rainwater. This city of health is also one that promotes active mobility such as cycling, walking and public transport.
Your project to pedestrianize part of the city center has already been criticized by your opponents…
The appeasement of the city center of Lyon meets three objectives in my opinion: to improve the quality of life of the inhabitants, to adapt the city to global warming and to enhance the heritage of one of the beating hearts of Lyon while participating in the economic prosperity of the merchants, restaurants, hotels etc. Walking is the first form of mobility on the peninsula. 80% of trips to reach it are done on foot and in active mobility! It is an ambitious and balanced project with the creation of this limited traffic zone to give space to everyone.
Does this mean that at mid-term, you are already a candidate for re-election?
The rhythm of democracy is not the rhythm of development. I don’t think in terms of mandate when I think of the lifespan of buildings and the choice of materials like when I build a school in wood or dance workshops in raw earth. The ecological transition agenda should not be confused with the political agenda. It’s not the time of the campaign, what matters to me is to be at the service of my city and to carry out the transformation in which we have engaged Lyon.
Another subject on the political agenda: the “metropolitan RER”, for which you have already expressed your interest, unlike the regional council…
It is essential to consider it, but for that, we must already intensify certain networks before finding very quickly all the possibilities of beam which can be exploited. The region can decide very quickly to improve the daily lives of users. Why on certain lines on Sunday are there trains only every two hours? These problems of insufficient supply must be solved.
In addition, Lyon does not reach its quota of 25% of social housing either. You announced in 2020 that it would take 2,000 per year to comply with the law. What regarding today ?
We are at 23%. It’s incredibly complex knowing that we are facing a demobilization of resources. Next, we want to position these slots where we want them. This is why, rather than carrying out large operations, we prefer to work on the plot: 40 here, 50 there, but I have no doubt that we will get there by 2026.
The metropolis check to municipalities that build
Grégory Doucet was not the only Lyon elected official to go to Mipim. The president (EELV) of the metropolis Bruno Bernard and his vice-president in charge of Housing, Social Housing and City Policy Renaud Payre also appeared in Cannes.
ANDread in 2020, the latter released 50 million euros in investment aid by 2026 for municipalities that build housing, i.e. 10 million euros per year. Thus, each municipality launching a new project can, theoretically, benefit from one million euros to develop public facilities related to housing (nurseries, schools, gymnasiums, roads, etc.).
“For the three quarters of the cities which do not play the game, the State must assume its responsibilities. Where the municipalities are failing, he might entrust us with the building permits”, considers the president of Greater Lyon, Bruno Bernard, a candidate for an experiment.
“If we don’t do this territorial rebalancing in terms of jobs and housing, urban sprawl, a catastrophic model for people and the planet, will continue,” he adds.
He does not believe so to say: due to the rise in interest rates, private housing is facing a demand crisis. “It’s the end of a model. Projects no longer have the financial balance to get out of the ground,” connects the environmentalist city councilor. “The door is always open for the federation of real estate developers”, adds its vice-president Roland Payre, ready to examine, over twenty years, the social rental usufruct.
On the one hand, the metropolis would buy old buildings and sell the usufruct, that is to say the right of enjoyment, to a social landlord. On the other, the latter would offer investors to acquire bare ownership, in other words the walls, before they become full owners following fifteen years.
