Les Géomètres-Experts plead for a climate and resilience bill that preserves a balanced development of the territories

As guarantors of the sustainable living environment, surveyors have been mobilized for several years to support the State in the policy of land sobriety and reduction of the artificialization of soils that it has initiated.

In January 2020, already, the EMB was invited to join the interministerial working group Zero Artificialization Net and Wasteland after having published a manifesto and formulated 10 proposals going towards the protection of agricultural and natural soils, in an approach taking into account the specificities of each territory. This is why today the profession fully welcomes the ambitions displayed by the Citizen's Climate Convention and supported by the Government through the Climate and Resilience bill and its “Housing” section.

However, the surveyors wish to alert the Government to several measures, the drafting of which is now likely to cause effects contrary to the expected results.

An inequitable and incomplete method of analyzing the artificialization of soils

By determining the objectives for reducing the artificialization of soils in relation to the construction projects carried out over the last ten years, the Government could see an increase in desertification in certain regions. This method would lead the towns and villages which have chosen to force the artificialization of their soils in the past to no longer have the possibility of building new housing, of reopening schools, shops or services.

Conversely, the territories having over-consumed their natural and agricultural spaces would be “rewarded” with the granting of an additional right to be artificialized, to the detriment of thrifty territories. Large urban areas would continue to expand, with the growing risk of destruction of ecological corridors and reservoirs of biodiversity that still separate them today.

A definition of the notion of artificialization to be clarified

Then, the notion of artificialization still needs to be clearly defined. Currently based on a macro-spatial vision, it is essential that this definition, and the associated measures to observe future developments, take into account all the truly artificialized land (not including gardens, parks, etc.).

The profession also warns about the shift from the notion of "net artificialization of soils" to that of "artificialization": far from sanctifying soils (natural, forest, agricultural, etc.), the semantics of net artificialization introduces a fair balance between the artificialization of certain soils and the renaturation of artificialized spaces, in the interest of cities and their inhabitants. A compensation system at the scale of the observed territory must thus be able to be set up.

The EMB's proposals to reconcile land rebalancing and nature conservation

Major players in the planning of metropolitan and overseas territories, surveyors occupy a privileged position of observation that provides them with detailed knowledge of local issues. This is why the EMB is now making four amendments as part of the Climate and Resilience bill:

• The first aims, driven by a desire for consistency, to limit the territorialization of these provisions within the scope of the SRU law (municipalities with a population of at least 3 inhabitants and which are included, within the meaning of the population census , in an agglomeration of more than 500 inhabitants including at least one municipality of more than 50 inhabitants).
• The second proposes to introduce a 10-year moratorium for virtuous territories, that is to say municipalities whose rate of artificialization over the last ten years is 50% lower than the average rate of artificialization observed in the region. 'intermunicipal, and failing this at the scale of the SCOT, over the reference period. At the end of this moratorium, an assessment of the results will be drawn up and the tools for pursuing the land sobriety effort will be re-examined and adjusted in order to reward these territories.
• The third defends a necessary contextualization of the objectives of reducing artificialization by means of a densification study, in order to take into account the needs and challenges facing rural areas. Combined with the various measures put in place by the Government to stem the phenomenon of desertification which is affecting certain regions (City Heart Actions, Small Towns of Tomorrow, etc.), this targeted approach will make it possible to support these territories in their development projects.
• Finally, the Order of Expert Surveyors is campaigning so that municipalities are not systematically obliged to urbanize their available wasteland when these could accommodate green and natural spaces. The Government must make the de-densification of urban spaces a major issue in its development policies: their resilience is at stake.