Contested, the skyscraper without HLM in Toulouse has been validated by the courts

2023-11-11 08:00:06

This is a first in Toulouse! A 40-story tower was supposed to be built this year. But this unprecedented project for the fourth city in France, authorized by the town hall since 2019 and called “Tour Occitanie”, is at a standstill because a succession of appeals has slowed its progress. The associations “No to the skyscraper of Toulouse”, “Les Amis de la Terre Midi-Pyrénées” and “Droit au logement 31” are thus opposed to the project of this green tower which should culminate at 150 meters high. According to them, it includes “infractions» in particular that of not providing social housing, as provided for by a modification of the PLU (Local Urban Planning Plan) on April 12, 2018, while the law imposes a quota of HLM (article L151-15 of the town planning code).

Twice, the three associations were rejected. First, at first instance, on September 17, 2021, then on appeal, this Thursday, November 9. The Toulouse Administrative Court of Appeal has just ruled that this tower project, which is to be built on SNCF land between the Matabiau and Médiathèque districts, was in compliance with the law and “does not present any inconsistency with the orientations adopted in the Toulouse Métropole development project». «The modification of the local urban plan does not have the consequence of amending the calculation methods determining the number of social housing units to be created.», Affirms the Toulouse jurisdiction.

New appeal judged in 2024

For the administrative court of appeal, compliance with the rule on the production of social housing “will be assessed on the overall scale of the operation (named “Grand Matabiau”, the future business district of Toulouse) and no longer to that of the land unit or the construction.» The HLM, which will not be integrated into the tower, will, in fact, be built on the rest of the territory of Grand Matabiau, promised the architect behind the project Daniel Libeskind and Philippe Journo, president of the developer La Compagnie Phalsbourg. Grand Matabiau plans the construction of 3,000 housing units, 35% of which will be HLM (1,050), where the Tour Occitanie, whose surface area amounts to 30,000 m², will have 126.

This good news for the designers of the Tour Occitanie does not mean that construction will now be able to get underway. A new appeal, demanding the cancellation of the project, has in fact been filed and will be examined by the Toulouse Court of Appeal in January 2024.