2023-10-17 05:00:00
Bsoon the end of “ugly France”? The government announced in September an experiment to begin to remove the famous “shoe boxes” from the 1,500 commercial zones that have sprung up on the outskirts of cities. Around thirty zones will share an envelope of 24 million euros. The first ones will be announced in November. The president of Muretain Agglo, André Mandement (PS), fears a communications operation. “In the commercial area of Portet-sur-Garonne, we have a wasteland at the northern entrance. Just for its land acquisition, it would cost more than 6 million euros, excluding compensation for businesses”he reacted in the columns of The Gazette du Midi.
Wastelands are not always visible and do not only concern shoeboxes. Commercial vacancy can also affect shopping malls. The Chamber of Commerce and Industry had identified 112 empty commercial cells in the couriers of Toulouse in 2020. The Toulouse Urban Planning Agency (AUAT) has been monitoring since 2012 all openings and closures of commercial spaces of more than 300 square meters. Figures which do not take into account car parks, which nevertheless today constitute a major issue in the era of the declared fight against the artificialisation of land.
« Mine d’or ». “When we talked about abandoned sites, until now we mainly thought of industrial wastelands or mines,” observes Jacques Oberti. With all the other presidents of intercommunalities in the urban area, the president (PS) of Sicoval recently wrote an open letter to the government to demand more flexibility in the application of the zero net artificialization (ZAN) objective. And the mayor of Ayguesvives is excited at the prospect of finding another use for the vast car parks in the commercial areas, strategically much better placed than a closed factory in the Pyrenees. “It’s a gold mine!” » he said.
Tisséo plans to compensate Carrefour to the tune of 3.2 million euros, as the metro work cuts 350 places out of the 3,000 in the shopping center located in Labège. Jacques Oberti calls for densification of the urban fabric and the construction of silo parking lots. These structures require less floor space, but are more expensive in terms of investment.
Post-oil. Geographer at Toulouse Jean-Jaurès University, Philippe Dugot is closely following the Sicoval project which plans the construction of 1,000 housing units, eight-story buildings and even a tower « signal » of 50 meters on the occasion of the arrival of the metro. “The commercial peripheries are at the forefront of the construction of post-oil landscapes”, analyzed the academic in an article in the journal gazebo published by the AUAT in November 2022. No question for this reader of Annie Ernaux to cast shame on peripheral France and its shoeboxes. “For many people, going to the mall is their weekend outing. We can see a real social mix on the shelves,” underlines the geographer.
Completely eradicating parking lots in these centers is not the miracle solution either: the car remains essential for going shopping when you don’t live in the city center. “Cycling doesn’t speak beyond the ring road”, notes Philippe Dugot. The fact remains that not everyone wants to find themselves in traffic jams at the entrance to hypermarkets. The geographer has also observed for several years a rebalancing of flows: the large hypermarkets designed in the 1970s are being abandoned in favor of more modest shopping centers, which are multiplying in the second and third rings of the conurbation. “Why not extend the Téléo cable car to Portet? » asks the academic.
“This is not the route we have chosen, but it is true that more and more people from Portet come to park in the Oncopole car park to take public transport,” notes Jean-Michel Lattes, the president of Tisséo, who emphasizes that the cable car was designed from the beginning to be extended one day to line C on the side of Montaudran and Basso Cambo at the terminus of line A. “What we are aiming for is intermodality”, he explains. The new silo parking built in Basso Cambo is already « compatible » with the cable car.
Could supermarket car parks eventually become “multimodal hubs”? Tisséo has entered into agreements with Leclerc in Saint-Orens and Casino in Fenouillet to house Linéo bus terminals. Casino had even pleaded to bring the future railway stop closer to Fenouillet during the public inquiry into the additional SNCF tracks planned for the arrival of the LGV. Without success §
When trees shade photovoltaic panels
The law theoretically imposes since 1 is July to equip car parks with more than 80 spaces with photovoltaic shade structures. A decree specifies that a “large canopy tree covering 3 parking spaces” can also do the trick. North of Toulouse, the new Casino flagship inaugurated in 2017 in Fenouillet had anticipated this Kafkaesque regulation by choosing to… not choose. This retail park has 3,000 parking spaces, partially covered with photovoltaic shades. The group also planted 722 trees. The distribution group’s property company even boasts of having won a “victory of the landscape” : of the 23 hectares of the commercial zone, 15% is occupied by green spaces. What “mix” should you choose between solar panels and trees in parking lots? A trained agronomist, Jacques Oberti tempers the collective aspiration to plant at every turn. “If we plant trees, our successors will have all of society against them when they have to be cut down. Better to think about the best place before putting handcuffs on yourself for the future,” warns the president of Sicoval. The conurbation community of the South-East of Toulouse, on the other hand, plans to grow tall buildings in the vast area of tertiary activities which has developed for decades over nearly 300 hectares § S. T.
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