District of Poitiers, France
A consistent overall Conurbation Project
Summary
In 1994, The District of Poitiers decided to direct all its actions towards a overall project which would be long term and common to all its inhabitants. A Conurbation Project was thus set up on the basis of a wide-ranging consultation of the stakeholders in the city. The scheme has three facets: solidarity, development of the potential the university could make, and assertion of the district's role as economic capital of the region. To implement it, the District sought support from existing structures such as the City Contract, the Environment Charter, the Local Housing Plan and the Local Plan for integration through Economics. The Conurbation Project is being brought up to date for the period 1998-2001.
Objectives
The objective is to produce an overall development scheme at District level which is visible and consistent, and involves all the stakeholders in the District: decision-makers, elected representatives and ordinary citizens. The issue is to identify the challenges common to all the inhabitants and to enable them to share them. The idea is to initiate a collective dynamic and to create a consensus around the Conurbation Project.
State of the project
The Conurbation Project is at the updating stage.
Context
As regional Prefecture for Poitou-Charente, the Poitiers conurbation (with 128,000 inhabitants in 1990) is part of a District with a total 235,000 inhabitants spread over 8 Communes.
As part of the preparation of the 1994-1998 State-Region Programme Agreement, in 1994 the conurbation decided to develop an urban scheme with the aim of enhancing and consolidating the five following potential resources:
- thanks to its demographic growth and the ongoing development of its activities, Poitiers has resilience; it must however link into a wider urban network so as not to become the only "island of wealth" in the Centre-West area of France;
- Poitiers is an important staging point on the North/South axis. It must also work to become a preferred junction on the East/West axis;
- Poitiers has a large university with a total of nearly 30,000 students. In this context, it needs to enhance its relationship with the economic community;
- while the high quality of its urban development is well known, an effort is still needed to site small housing units which have up till now been over-concentrated in the city centre;
- civic life is diverse and dynamic but it is too compartmentalised.
Strategy
During the maturing phase of the project, a large scale consultation was carried out with all the stakeholders in the District, together with all the mayors and the citizens. From this consultation, the main expectations of the inhabitants emerged and were broken down into the five previously identified themes. These themes were used to work out the framework of the Conurbation Project. In order to bring the project to life, a set of tools used in planning, development and environment policies was utilised. The main features of this approach are required to follow three criteria: to be cross-functional, global and locally based.
Activities
On the basis of the five identified potentialities, the District selected three challenges for its Conurbation Project: to complete the city's facilities, to improve distribution of the university's potential in the social and economic fabric of the city and to reinforce internal solidarity.
The Conurbation Project is supported by the following tools:
- an Environment Charter signed in 1994, for which more than two thirds of the actions have already been implemented ;
- a District Local Housing Programme which was reviewed in 1997 and whose objective is to improve the distribution of all types of housing throughout the conurbation ;
- a District City Contract, which was agreed in 1994, after 15 years of urban social development ;
- a Local Plan for Insertion through district Economics initiated in 1994 and aiming to integrate 750 long-term unemployed people over 5 years ;
- a Citizens' Charter which established "dialogue days” in all areas of Poitiers in 1997 ;
- a single urban development executive, bringing together skills from urban development, housing, economy and town planning.
Urban development policies are usually implemented at District level, but an overall approach was also applied at the level of each town centre. As for solidarity policies, they are not to disadvantage one particular area or group.
The District has also committed itself to special topic programmes, which aim to take into account the whole of the areas concerned. These programmes apply to:
- the development of an Urban Transport Plan launched in 1996;
- the definition of a new tourist policy which makes use of all the District's assets in this field;
- the definition since 1997 of 138 indicators which constitute the management chart of the urban environment for the District;
- a policy of linked development and environment, whose symbol is the implementation of the urban natural park;
- a structure plan for the campus;
- the refuse sorting system.
Partners
The citizens and all the stakeholders for the area were associated in the process of defining the Conurbation Project. Over 500 decision-makers from the economic, cultural, sports, voluntary and social sectors were consulted. A 70-page booklet was published and a questionnaire distributed to the 56,000 households in the conurbation (120,000 people). The 8% response rate was deemed to be very satisfactory. In terms of actions which are part of the Conurbation Project, these are being developed in partnership with the relevant stakeholders: local voluntary organisations, state, regional, county, local level structures, government agencies and economic actors.
Financing and resources
used
It is difficult to estimate the budget earmarked for the Conurbation Project, as a number of District departments were involved. In years to come, the Conurbation Project and Agenda 21 that are going to be set up by Poitiers and its District (in response to the call for projects from the Environment and Development Ministry) will merge. A budget of FFr 135 000 has been allocated for the operation. The Ministry for Territorial Development and the Environment has allocated the District a grant of FFr 55 970.
Outcomes and impact
A variety of actions were undertaken in the three previously identified fields.
As part of "Poitiers - Capital City”, one of the examples that may be quoted among others is the significant development of a tourism policy. Two tourist trails sign posted with a blue and a yellow line have been created around the Church of Notre-Dame, a major Poitiers building. The "Polychronies" which are light generated frescoes projected on the City's historical buildings, are now known outside France.
As part of "Poitiers-Intelligence”, the University Plan 2000 and the major restructuring of the university campus, carried out in partnership with the University and the District, has created a real local neighbourhood and integrated it fully within the city. A balance was therefore re-established between Poitiers' three university sites (city centre, campus and Futuroscope) to reveal the University's impact and influence as a whole.
As part of "Poitiers-Solidarity”, the Local Plan for Insertion through Economics, agreed between the State and the District for 5 years has allowed i) a large number of people in difficulty to return to employment or training, and ii) a strong corporate involvement in the approach. Also, a very active restructuring policy for areas in difficulty has been implemented; it includes civilian participation and thus facilitates active citizenship.
Obstacles and difficulties
The evaluation of the Conurbation Project has highlighted the following points:
- the defined special topics have not fully enabled collective take-up by the population ;
- they have not succeeded in breaking down barriers between the stakeholders in the District ;
- some projects lack long-term perspectives ;
- the risk of fragmentation that threatens the city has not been sufficiently taken into account.
It was therefore decided to revise the Conurbation Project. To this end, a study was ordered by the District in January 1998 to enable inhabitants' new expectations to emerge. Updating has proved essential for several reasons:
- the need to start from an overall project, linked to sustainable development, in order to implement contractual action;
- the need to redefine common values for the conurbation;
- the citizens' expectations for the local public authorities to have greater responsibility in strategic initiatives.
Transferability
The means brought into play to develop and implement the Conurbation Project are transferable: consultation with citizens, reorganisation of services, etc.
What to remember
The purpose of updating the Conurbation Project is to allow one or several cross-functional themes to emerge which all the public and local stakeholders can refer to. This project will explicitly integrate the notion of sustainable development. Agenda 21 and the Conurbation Project will merge.
Contact
Mr Dominique ROYOUX and Mesdames Mireille TERNY and Dominique LEFORT
Service Recherche et Développement du District
Hôtel du District
11bis, rue du Puygarreau
86000 POITIERS
FRANCE
Telephone: 33 05 49 52 36 39
Fax: 33 05 49 52 38 83
This case study was drawn from a summary report produced by the 'Association 4D' (Dossiers et Débats pour le Développement Durable [Issues and Debates on Sustainable Development]) dated March 1996: "Les villes françaises et le développement durable [French cities and sustainable development]" Summary report, case studies and data sheets. B. Duhamel, C. Emelianoff, L. Héland, C. Menneghin and J. P. Piéchaud. pp. 87-94
Acknowledgements
The text for this project summary was developed by
l'association 4D (Dossiers et débats pour le
développement durable), Paris - E-mail:association4d@globenet.org, 1999.
© ICLEI, 1999. See Impressum.