The Paris administrative court of appeal suspended, Monday, September 20, the building permit for a swimming pool in Aubervilliers (Seine-Saint-Denis) intended to serve as a training pool for the Olympic Games (Olympics) in Paris in 2024 and which involves the destruction of allotment gardens.
“The execution of this ordinance, which suspends the contested building permit, necessarily implies, as the applicants rightly claim, that the work already undertaken be immediately terminated”, according to the court ruling.
There are “Serious doubts about legality” of this permit, deposited irregularly by Karine Franclet, the UDI mayor of Aubervilliers, and which was issued without respecting certain rules in terms of town planning, in particular the compensation for felled trees, specifies the decision.
During the hearing last Wednesday, the judge was puzzled about this project amounting to 33 million euros, of which about a third must be financed by Solideo, the company responsible for delivering the works for the Olympics 2024.
Demonstration in Aubervilliers
Three gardeners and two environmental protection associations are at the initiative of this emergency procedure, while the plots affected by the work have already been destroyed. The court’s decision comes a fortnight after the evacuation of environmental activists who had occupied the gardens for four months.
On Saturday, about 300 people marched in Aubervilliers to denounce this project, which they believe is contrary to the needs linked to the ecological emergency. They mainly targeted the solarium which should accompany the aquatic center and be created instead of trees and vegetable gardens.
Training pool for athletes during the Olympics, the swimming pool must then be accessible to the inhabitants of this popular city, in a department where 60% of children cannot swim when they enter sixth grade, in particular for lack of sufficient infrastructure.
The workers’ gardens of the Virtues, a century-old enclave of 2.5 hectares at the foot of the towers, must be reduced by 4,000 square meters for the construction of this work. The majority of the gardeners concerned were relocated to other neighboring plots by Grand Paris Aménagement, owner of the land.
The same court had interrupted in April the work of the Media Village, another flagship project of the Olympics in Seine-Saint-Denis. But three months later, after the study of the file in the background, it had reversed, authorizing the resumption of the site.
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