• The metropolis of Montpellier is throwing itself fully into transitional town planning.

  • This practice, increasingly popular, consists of giving a place a temporary vocation, while waiting for the permanent facilities to emerge from the ground.

  • Four “permits to imagine” have been launched by the metropolis and public developers.

In Montpellier (Hérault), we are betting on transitional town planning.

This practice consists in giving a place a temporary vocation, while waiting for the permanent developments to emerge from the ground.

A cultural place, social accommodation, a solidarity shop, etc.

The metropolis, and the planners Serm and SA3M, will launch in September “permits to imagine”, on four sites: the tower of Assas at Mosson, the mas des Brousses at Cambacérès, at Petit Bard and at La Restanque.

On these places, under construction or undergoing metamorphosis, those who wish, in particular associative and cultural actors, will be able to propose projects, even the craziest, which will temporarily occupy these fallow spaces.

In early 2023, the first selected ideas will be unveiled.

“The time for projects is infinitely long, confides Michaël Delafosse (PS), mayor and president of the metropolis.

Between the moment when we say "we do" and the moment when things are done, we have to work on how we bring these places to life, so that they become desirable.

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“A brilliant concept”

Transitional town planning is a “brilliant concept”, rejoices Félix Monteils, a local farmer.

At Eurêka, under construction in Castelnau-le-Lez, where he has planted 3 ha of orchards, he is working on the opening of a barn, where he and his colleagues can sell their harvest.

It will open by 2023, then be dismantled and moved to another site in 2025, when work on the building planned there will begin.

In the district of the former EAI, the Tropisme hall is also a successful example of transitional town planning.

This place of celebration and culture, which is a big success, “is there until 2030, explains its director, Vincent Cavaroc.

Before we arrived, this district was not on the map of Montpellier for most inhabitants.

It was a military district, with a wall, where it is written Secret-Defense.

Without a transitory act, like this one, which comes to prefigure a use, the day when the first inhabitants arrive, it is in a social no man's land, without identity.

Here, the day when the first inhabitants will settle, it will be in a context already known to Montpellier residents.

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" Give and take "

And transitional town planning is “give and take”, continues Vincent Cavaroc.

This allows a municipality to clear the uses of an empty site or under construction, and cultural, associative or agricultural actors to give life to crazy projects.

Which would probably never have seen the light of day without transitional town planning.

Our report on town planning

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At the start of 2023, when the first transitional urban planning ideas for the Assas tower in La Mosson, the Mas des Brousses in Cambacérès, the Petit Bard and the Restanque will be unveiled, new "permits to imagine" will be launched by the metropolis. and public developers.

This new wave of calls for projects will concern other municipal and metropolitan land.

But it is not excluded, if operators show interest, that private land will join the system.

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