About thirty kilometers around Toulouse, two projects over ten years old illustrate the tensions and contradictions in the creation of two concerted development zones (ZAC).
Led by local authorities, the ZAC des Portes du Tarn, straddling the Haute-Garonne and the Tarn, and that known as “du Rivel”, south of Toulouse, are experiencing various advances. At a time of the “zero soil artificialisation” objective, a major focus of the biodiversity plan, these projects must balance the impact of urban sprawl, job creation and the necessary ecological transition.
On December 14, 2022, the Council of State returned to the suspension of the development works undertaken by the local public development company (SPLA) Les Portes du Tarn. In this file, on 198 hectares located in the municipalities of Saint-Sulpice-la-Pointe (81) and Buzet-sur-Tarn (31), the ambition “ is to create 2,200 jobs by 2042, positioning itself as a new generation industrial business park”.
Plantation
Supported by the Occitanie region and the departments, the project aims to build “a center reserved for services and leisure, as part of an exemplary circular economy approach”, according to its director Valérie Laumond. All for a total cost of 88 million euros which provides for the planting of 40,000 trees, the creation of two wetlands and the sanctuary of 8.5 ha of agricultural land.
Insufficient for opponents: challenged in March 2022 by France Nature Environnement and the Saint-Sulpice active and citizen collective, the work has since been interrupted.
If this project has experienced so many oppositions and legal battles, it is also due to the vagueness maintained around the arrival, on this ZAC, in a huge warehouse, of an e-commerce giant, type Amazon . By now ruling out the idea of creating “an XXL logistics center” on the business park, the Portes du Tarn will continue to try to attract businesses, while the site currently only hosts a large wine cooperative and a petrol station.
“We especially fear a degradation of the living environment, due to a mad artificialization of the land” Stéphane Dupraz, member of the collective against the ZAC du Rivel
According to his direction, “a reservation contract was notably signed with the company H2V in August 2022, with a view to setting up its project for a renewable hydrogen production site in the park”.
A few kilometers away, between Baziège and Montgiscard, south of Toulouse, another project, known as ZAC du Rivel, is progressing chaotically. Carried by the community of municipalities (Sicoval) since 2014 and originally planned on 200 hectares, it has reduced the sails and must extend over a hundred hectares.
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