2023-09-11 17:04:03
They are one of the symbols of “peripheral France”, of the concreting and the erosion of agricultural land. On Monday, September 11, the government launched a call for projects with a budget of 24 million euros to support the transformation of around twenty commercial zones located at the entrance to towns, out of the 1,500 to 1,800 what the country has.
The envelope must make it possible to finance preliminary studies and recruit a project manager per area concerned. Concretely, project leaders will have to contact the prefectures, who will carry out a pre-selection of the files. Two waves of winners will be designated, in November 2023 and early 2024.
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They now account for 72% of French spending
Archetype of what some observers call “ugly France”these commercial areas are characterized by wide roads lined with advertising panels, with facades generally made of sheet metal and surrounded by large parking lots.
They “are in many ways the incarnation of the 20th century: that of mass consumption, that of the automobile for all, that of the pavilion for everyone”declared the Minister Delegate in charge of SMEs, commerce and crafts, Olivia Grégoire, during the presentation of the call for projects.
For traders too, this model has long been “a form of Eldorado”recognized the minister, with stores built sixty years ago “on inexpensive agricultural land, cubic “shoe boxes” built inexpensively”.
Even today, they account for 72% of French spending. But in a world “who realizes its limits, the commercial zone has reached its own”estimated Olivia Grégoire.
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“Major ecological issues”
“We have major ecological challenges, namely how we avoid having buildings that are thermal sieves”, added for his part the Minister of Ecological Transition, Christophe Béchu. He hopes to halve the current deadlines for redeveloping these areas. “It’s not primarily a money problem. What is blocking today are the regulations, the deadlines, the authorization procedures”he admitted.
The green industry bill, under discussion in Parliament, should also remove certain regulatory blockages, by making it possible, for example, to deviate from the local urban planning plan (PLU) or to reduce deadlines.
Thus, a dynamic commercial zone in an urban environment could be densified and make way for housing, while a zone in decline could be “renatured”or even accommodate an industrial activity when located in a sparsely populated area.
The government had already announced last fall the extension to city entrances of act 2 of “City Heart Action” (ACV), a program which only concerns medium-sized towns.
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