The very sensitive file of the Josaphat wasteland is back on the table of the Brussels government, after a fairly critical public inquiry into the PAD (territorial development plan). Undeveloped land of such size (25 ha), straddling Schaerbeek and Evere, is extremely rare in the capital. Rudi Vervoort (PS), Minister-President of Brussels and Pascal Smet (Vooruit), Secretary of State for Town Planning, intend to maintain green spaces there but, above all, to build housing there. However, a biodiversity has developed around this former disused station. Local residents strongly oppose the project. Ecolo also blocks.
The problem looming in Josaphat is the same as in most real estate projects in Brussels. Écolo wants more green spaces, the PS, housing.
Rudi Vervoort: It’s a bit more complicated. The major challenge is to ensure the territorial development of a city, meet its needs, while ensuring a balance. It cannot only be residential, economic or green spaces. In Josaphat, by reworking the project, we arrive at two thirds of non-built, one third built. In the two thirds not built, there is a third of nature reserve and the rest will be an open space. The reserve will be managed differently from green spaces. We have to accept the fact that, if we want to conserve areas of biodiversity, we have to make them inaccessible to people.
The project voted last year, before the public inquiry, provided for 1,200 housing units. Are we still on that number?
R.V. : We are at 1,100 housing units, with more nature. There will be a mix of public, medium and acquisitive housing.
Pascal Smet : Some people sometimes make people believe that biodiversity is in danger in Brussels. We have created a whole narrative on biodiversity, we think of whales that will disappear, at the coral reef. We don’t have that in urban areas. And then nature came back! The big lesson is that we can quite easily create biodiversity.
All the same, in the study carried out after a public inquiry, the regional commission is concerned that we are allowing “rabbit cages to develop” in Josaphat.
P.S. : Yes, but in the new RRU (regional planning regulations) which is on the table and will be adopted by the government before the summer, we are moving towards quality housing. Josaphat must be an exemplary project, with terraces, greenery on the roofs. The project has evolved since the public inquiry.
R.V. : These are rabbit cages, but a luxury version.
P.S. : The day you stop [de construire du logement], your city is getting too expensive. The archetype is San Francisco. There is a paradigm shift, and Rudi and I don’t need Ecolo to do it. In the past, there was land, we built and in the end we wondered where to put the green space. Today, as in Josaphat, we first think of green spaces and then of the means of integrating buildings into them. We are for greenery. Ecolo criticizes the market project on the Place du Miroir, in Jette, which is too mineral. But you can’t make a deal on a lawn, where you have to come in your boots. We remain a city.
Ecolo doesn’t seem convinced by your Josaphat PAD.
R.V. : It was approved by Ecolo at first reading. Nothing has changed in a year. Of course, it is always upgradable. But the majority agreement is clear.
Will it be adopted as it is before the summer?
R.V. : We need to talk about it in government. But take the file from the Wiels marsh to Forest (Editor’s note: pond appeared following the accidental piercing of the water table) : the Region bought a marsh for 8 million euros. I hear that now some people no longer want to build anything there. Wouldn’t we be damned to achieve our priorities on land we own? At this count, we will empty the fund.
P.S. : What misery I did not have when I cut down a few trees on Place Fernand Cocq (Ixelles). We did it anyway. Now everyone says: this place is great.
It sounds like your statement in “Wilfried”: “I’m not a dictator but I make people happy against their own will.”
P.S. : When you work in the public space, people oppose each other. But when the project is good, you do it in spite of them, and in the end they are happy.
Will it be the same for Jehoshaphat?
R.V. : Yes. I have an example. If we say: “Tomorrow, we close Docks” (shopping center near the canal), we have a revolution. However, when I issued the permit, I took full face.
Planners complain about the slow and difficult permitting process. It would no longer be the Nimby effect but Banana (“build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything”).
R.V. : Whatever the project we submit, we have an almost Pavlovian reflex of associations that go to appeal and for whom it is bad anyway. In Brussels, we are still 53% unbuilt. For 30% of people who leave Brussels, it is not because they want to go to the countryside, but because they can no longer afford quality accommodation.
P.S. : “Participation without insight leads to judgment without perspective” : these are the words of the Flemish bouwmeester. Citizens must be involved from the start of projects, not at the end. We need to set a framework within which promoters can operate. Brussels is taken as an example in the world for its action over the past 15 years. But if we go into the “we no longer touch anything that looks like greenery”, we will have a problem of viability and social fracture. You need quality housing but also accessibility. And if you want to live in the countryside, go to the countryside.
“Uyttendaele does not have a monopoly on secularism”
What are the consequences of the very divisive vote on ritual slaughter within the Brussels government?
Rudi Vervoort : But nothing at all. We were spectators. I hope that the parliamentary groups will be able to get over that. It’s a sequence that we could have avoided. A vote of this type reflects a divisive file in society. And this cannot be resolved by frontal opposition. This split all the groups except the PTB. The best example remains Challenge, which carries the text but which several deputies vote against. It is the watered sprinkler. However, this is not good because the government needs stability. Some speak of electoralism, but we are in phase with the people who challenge us. We can also vote with full conviction and tell ourselves that secularism has nothing to do with it.
Julien Uyttendaele presented himself as secular and distanced himself from the Brussels PS. Is there still room for secular people in the Brussels PS?
R.V. : Are you kidding or what? He has a monopoly on what secularism is? I too am secular. In all ethical issues, until adoption by homosexual couples, the PS has always voted unanimously. Unlike those who present themselves as the greatest secularists and voted against. Secularism also means accepting that others live their lives. The debate on slaughter meant taking away a right that had been recognized for years and saying: it’s over. The Region has subsidized the slaughter sites. Then, there is a seesaw and it would be the crux of secularism, suddenly. Who are we kidding?
“Some thought that the pedestrian area would be like the dike in Knokke. In reality, it’s Blankenberge”
Pascal Smet, you stepped up against the transformation of the A12 into an urban boulevard. Rudi Vervoort, you took a beating from Wallonia against the idea of removing the Herrmann-Debroux viaduct. Walloons and Flemings sometimes have the impression that they are no longer wanted in Brussels. Well Named ?
Rudi Vervoort : On the Herrmann-Debroux PAD, we respected all the legal prescriptions. Opinion has been requested. There was consultation with the other Regions. To say otherwise is wrong. We will still have to discuss a lot about the way we do things, it is not tomorrow that we will demolish the viaduct. With Flanders, which has colossal projects around Brussels (the ring or the tram to Zaventem), we are in a more constructive process. We must find agreements with Flanders, we cannot remain in an “all or nothing” posture.
What about the place of the car within the Brussels Region?
R.V. : We must rebalance the functions, but I am not for the evaporation of cars. We are not here to complicate the lives of our fellow citizens, but to encourage them to live their city differently. There are still too many cars, but in a few years the city has changed.
Pascal Smet : We must avoid making Brussels inaccessible for Walloons and Flemings. That’s why I intervened on the A12, because the file was not ripe. We cannot tell people: you are no longer welcome. Shops and restaurants need Walloons and Flemings. The tragedy is that Belgium is small. Here, in 30 minutes, you are in Antwerp, in 15 minutes in Leuven. These cities have invested heavily in urban renewal. 15 years ago, to eat well, you had to come to Brussels. Today you can eat well in Antwerp and Mechelen. We must improve the living conditions of the people of Brussels, there are too many cars, but we must remain accessible. We must not be against the car, but against too many cars.
And if Herrmann-Debroux is demolished before the arrival of the RER?
R.V. : But no ! The idea is to develop the project according to the public transport offer.
P.S. : In Wallonia, the Waterloo-Wavre area is developing as a competitor area to Brussels. The historical drama in terms of urban planning is for Uccle. In the connection between the center of Brussels and Waterloo, there is a blockage in Uccle. So these people no longer go to the centre. They stay in Waterloo and Uccle. There is a big mobility problem here.
Is it the fault of the Bois la Cambre traffic plan?
R.V. : The problem already occurs above.
Does this problem harm the center of Brussels?
R.V. : This deprives the center of a certain type of business.
P.S. : That’s why we’re going to issue the Golden Fleece permit, because we need to invest in luxury stores in Brussels. The pedestrian is a great success. When we built it, people thought it was going to be like the dike in Knokke. But in reality, it’s Blankenberge. There is a population that lives in the neighborhood and feels good there. But other people, with certain means, find themselves confronted with this population. Because in Brussels, unlike other cities, there are poor people in the centre.