Will the oil depot located in the Ardoines area in Vitry-sur-Seine leave? If so, when, to make room for what, and with what money? These questions are currently pending in the larger city of Val-de-Marne, one of the two to have such an oil installation on its territory, along with Villeneuve-le-Roi.
And they occupied a large part of the last municipal council brought to consider its local urban plan (PLU). More precisely, on a “request for modification from the prefect” and “the establishment by the State of a perimeter of studies in Ardoines aimed at the creation of a park on the banks of the Seine”.
Battle on the surface
In Vitry, nearly 100,000 inhabitants today, the local urban plan has been approved but it is for the moment suspended. The reason: the classification last February of the plot on which the deposit is located in zone N, for “natural”. A ranking motivated by the master plan for the Ile-de-France region (SDRIF) to create a park of at least 5 hectares in the future district. However, this modification was refused by the prefect of Val-de-Marne because the depot only occupies 4.3 hectares. And not “more than 5”, as expected. It is this point, and more broadly the future of the Ardoines site and district, which has been the subject of a long debate within the city hall of Vitry.
“Every week, we negotiate the points of the ISO (Editor’s note: operation of national interest) by asking for a maximum of guarantees for the city, explained the Communist mayor Pierre Bell-Lloch, on October 7. The prefect knows that he has a determined mayor in front of him. We defend the interest of creating a park of more than 5 hectares on the banks of the Seine. With a commitment from the prefect signed on the departure of the oil depot. There are eleven oil depots in Ile-de-France. That of Vitry has a capacity of nearly 70,000 m3.
Rouen’s “precedent”
“The truth is that it’s a hell of a step backwards, tackled Hocine Tmimi (PCF) of the Vitry Rassemblage group. It is a form of surrender. We still have a precedent with the Rouen affair (Editor’s note: the fire at the Lubrizol plant). You had the possibility of imposing on the prefect a requirement to condition the departure of the depot with a park in this place, explains the elected official. The proposal for a park on the banks of the Seine is obvious. And it can be complementary to the departure of the depot. “
In Vitry, the Ardoines district must change considerably over the next few years. Right next to the Seveso classified depot, the old EDF power station is disappearing, taking its chimneys with it. “I will only vote this PLU if we indicate the departure of the depot and the creation of a park, the Central park, as I had called it, a nod to the plant, ”explained former mayor Jean-Claude Kennedy (PCF). Project on which all elected officials seem to agree. “The question is to make this PLU enforceable by working on the creation of a park of more than 5 hectares”, explained in the wake of the deputy Djamel Hamani (PCF).
The fire in Rouen is what motivated Fabrique Vitry a year ago to launch a petition asking that the State “proceed with the immediate dismantling” of the depot. “It’s not every day that a PLU is stopped by a prefect” explained to the council the elected (without label) Frédéric Bourdon of the Vitry en Mieux group who criticized the majority for not “having in mind the interest of the Vitriots ”.
The petition recalled in particular that an accident simulation exercise had been carried out at the end of 2018. But deplored that it had “not involved any of the inhabitants living near the oil depot”. Especially since hundreds of housing units are to be built in the coming years in Les Ardoines.
Why is it getting stuck
On the side of the prefecture of Val-de-Marne, it is confirmed that the prefect has decided to “suspend the enforceability of the PLU”, and this “pending the proper consideration of the elements in the notice of the State ”. The reason is that the notice sent concerning the PLU of the city of Vitry mentioned “insufficient consideration of the provisions of the SDRIF (master plan for the Ile-de-France region) which provides for, in the Ardoines sector, the creation of a green space / leisure area ”of more than 5 hectares.
