City of Jean de La Fontaine and Pépito Belin biscuits bought by LU, Château-Thierry, 15.500 inhabitants, is experiencing renewed attractiveness due to its geographical position, less than 100 kilometers from Paris and near the A4 motorway.
"Today we have a very significant demand for land, both for housing and for industry, linked to the fact that Château-Thierry is increasingly under the influence of the Paris region, which continues to spread out, with people who work in Paris and telecommute here", observes the mayor Sébastien Eugène (Radical Party).
But the objective of limiting the artificialization of the soil, one of the primary causes of climate change and the erosion of biodiversity, to reach "zero net artificialization" in 2050, could reshuffle the cards.
Because if Château-Thierry was able to "spread out" after the war on its northern hillsides by building subdivisions and social housing, then by developing an inter-municipal industrial zone of more than 100 hectares, the land quotas were "from a single extremely reduced blow with the ZAN", recognizes the mayor.
If he does not call into question the need to move towards more land sobriety, the ZAN objective sins according to him by its "calculation method", based on the land consumption of the last 10 years.
"This penalizes the territories which have consumed little, in particular the most virtuous or those which had no demand. We risk freezing inequalities, especially as those who have consumed a lot will have more quotas", regrets Sébastien Eugene.
This feeling of "injustice", Luc Laratte, president of the Union of Industrialists of the South of Aisne (UISA), shares it. He fears that the ZAN will come to slow down economic development in one of the “poorest departments of France”.
"Rat Race"
Located in a business area of the city caught up in urbanization, his company, 3 Axes, specializing in aluminum profiles, is cramped.
"We are looking for 10.000 m2 to expand, but it's a rat race for land and there are no more wastelands. The last one went up for auction almost instantly," he laments, noting a "rise in land prices" driven by the arrival of Ile-de-France businesses.
If the Climate law establishing the ZAN launched the start of the land quota count in 2021, the mayors are still unaware of the precise envelope of hectares they will have in the future and how certain projects of national interest will be counted (lines LGV, prisons) or local (intermunicipal swimming pool). Many also wonder why the vegetated or renatured parts are not deducted from the artificialized land.
In 2022, the publication of the first decrees of application of ZAN had aroused unanimous opposition from the mayors in the face of an application deemed "arithmetic and undifferentiated". To get communities out of the blur, a Senate bill will be discussed on March 14. "We ask mayors to house residents and create jobs without artificializing, all without transition, without pedagogy and without means", observes Jean-Baptiste Blanc, LR rapporteur for the text.
The deputies also drew their own bill.
In the meantime, the mayor of Château-Thierry remains authorized to urbanize nine hectares of agricultural land to set up 120 tourist chalets, but this achievement "will prevent other future projects", he specifies.
Not far away, the industrial zone must also expand to 20 hectares, but the town hall will only be able to accommodate "small projects", less job providers, for lack of quotas.
Projects that the environmental association Vie et Paysages, affiliated with FNE, does not always understand. “We have already artificialized a lot since the 1970s in Château-Thierry and it would be better to build housing all year round if we still have to spread out”, estimates its president Jacques Franclet, for whom “the arrangements with the ZAN, if there must be any, must remain marginal".
In the city center, where degraded housing is concentrated, the positive effects of ZAN are already being felt. “Developers can no longer spread out, they are forced to focus on urban warts and find solutions,” welcomes the mayor.