Date of label : 29/10/2024
This image depicts a lively outdoor gathering or event, possibly a festival, fair, or market in Lyon.
Summary
The Etape 22D project is a place for collaboration and social innovation, and a testing ground for transitional urban planning in Lyon Metropole (FR). On five hectares of unused urban wasteland, the city demonstrated how it can quickly and temporarily activate and fill this space and its buildings with diverse activities. This implements public policies supporting economic development, emergency housing, emerging sectors, circular economy, cultural associations, active mobility, and the textile industry. The Etape 22D project’s large-scale demonstration site is conducive to a mix of uses, synergies and stakeholder resource sharing, in the centre of an urban renewal district.
The solutions offered by the Good Practice
The Etape 22D practice embodies Lyon Metropole’s strategy for transitional urban planning, with strong political support, as reflected in the Atlas of Transitional Urban Planning. Since 2022, stakeholders involved in economic development, emergency housing, and social integration have worked together on this project. This mix of activities promotes cooperation and creates synergies.
Etape 22D offers:
- Affordable space for stakeholders unable to access the traditional property market.
- Emergency housing to people in extrene need.
- More open space for the neighbourhood and its inhabitants.
The aim is for these transitional activities to inspire long-term urban renewal projects.
Strong political will was required to realise the planning for this project, involving a local political governance agreement between Lyon Metropole and the city of Villeurbanne.
The project has encouraged collective learning and the sharing of skills, despite technical and legal challenges. Future improvements will be the work on the outdoor spaces and enable access for all citizens.
Building on the sustainable and integrated urban approach
At the project’s outset, a study identified the needs of the district and how public policies could be aligned to address them. Political guidance ensured the transitional urban site was mixed-use, rather than having a single function, to better address the identified needs. As a result, there was a high-density optimised land use, with existing buildings seen as valuable resources, aligning with the need for urban redevelopment without losing open or green spaces.
Etape 22D is Lyon Metropole’s solution to land reuse, offering citizens and stakeholders new facilities that address a wide range of public and private needs (economy, social, housing, culture, and solidarity). In this space, stakeholder collaboration helps to stimulate social and urban innovations, synergies, and the development of a mix of different occupations. For example, INDULO, a centre for mediation on industrial careers, cohexists with the Grand Plateau's active mobility group and with the young people housed by Acolea.
Based on participatory approach
Lyon Metropole is committed to building a governance model that involves all stakeholders and fosters cross-sector cooperation. Since 2022, stakeholders from the the economic sector (Grand Plateau, Plateau Urbain, Le Moulin), from emergency housing (Habitat et Humanisme, Acolea), from solidarity and social integration (Groupement Économie Circulaire, Resto du Cœurs), education (INDULO), and the local authority (City of Villeurbanne) have worked together in the same place to build the Etape 22D project. All the stakeholders meet together in technical and steering groups, and political committees.
What difference has it made?
The Etape 22D project is ongoing, but early results demonstrate the creation of services that were sorely missing in the area:
- Emergency housing units were created for about 80 persons, providing social support and two dedicated premises, reducing the need to use hotels as emergency accommodation. The target groups are single mothers with one or more children under three, and young adults leaving the child welfare system.
- Affordable workshops, offices and storage space to enable organisations to access property they could not otherwise afford to rent. By the end of 2024, more than 90 companies will be operating on the site, a high-density usage that fosters resource and skills sharing through synergies and cooperation.
- Land in use instead of left vacant. This large post-industrial site has been re-activated through a mixed programme of transitional urban planning and opened up for public use. As a result, local residents are now offering services such as meeting rooms, outdoor spaces, and community events.
Therefore, the Etape 22D project has successfully met three main challenges: activating a large site through transitional urban planning, providing access to affordable workshops and offices, and creating supported emergency accommodation.
Why this Good Practice should be transferred to other cities
Lyon Metropole’s Etape 22D practice demonstrates how cities can take advantage of the long timeframe of urban renewal to find innovative solutions that address the cities’ needs. In this case, by making vacant wasteland available that allow economic development and job creations, and provide services to citizens.
This approach allows cities to offer affordable property to economic actors who might otherwise be unable to access property. This helps keep productive activities in the city, and brings different activities together to foster innovation and cooperation. The project integrates emergency accommodation into an urban renewal area, addressing the urgent homeless crisis and providing an alternative to hotel accommodation.
Transitional urban planning, however, lacks an appropriate stabilised legislative framework in France, raising questions about work distribution between owners and occupants, public procurement codes, equipment subsidies, and rent discounts. Here, experience gained by the project could be useful for other cities.
The Etape 22D practice is easily transferable, to provide solutions for other European cities facing the same problems:
- Giving access to affordable property.
- Making the most of the long term for transitional urban planning.
- Creating synergies between economic stakeholders and associations.
- Providing a place for emergency housing.
Finding solutions to re-use available and vacant wasteland.
Sharing solutions for technical, governance and regulatory challenges could benefit other cities. It could also help refine elements of the model:
- Aligning objectives at the local governance level.
- Facilitating collaboration among stakeholders.
- Balancing the state of buildings, the allocated budget, and regulatory constraints.
The method for selecting occupants.
The project’s experience has been shared through a professional day on transitional urban planning at “Etape 22D” in October 2023, internal feedback to inform future transitional urban planning in Lyon Metropole and external training for public agents, and site visits for other French cities, city associations, and colleagues from Belgium and Quebec.