Urban planning: how Toulouse and its Metropolis will become even denser

Toulouse and the other 36 municipalities of the Metropolis took an important step this Thursday, during the assembly of the elected, in the development of the urban plan that will outline the face of the city and its intermunicipality. A step that will also help the struggling real estate market to recover. Where to build homes and businesses? In what proportion, with what dimensions, what heights? As of 2021, the Metropolis no longer has an urban plan. The one that had been developed and promoted in 2019, a translation of the “moderate density” promised by Jean-Luc Moudenc in the municipal elections of 2014, was annulled by administrative justice, forcing the community to restart the colossal work .

Since this Thursday, residents have found a rule of urbanization. More precisely, a first version that will be submitted to a public inquiry before being voted on at the end of 2025. But a first version that already establishes, up to the plot, the constructability for the period 2025-2035.

Specifically, at the beginning of July, when the PLU is put online on the website of Metropolis, the inhabitants will be able to see if their land, that of their neighbors and those of the neighborhood are likely to receive new constructions: houses, extensions, buildings. , etc.

7,400 new housing units per year

Since 2021 and the climate law, the city’s manufacturing rules have changed. The use of natural, agricultural and forest land should be halved compared to the consumption of the last ten years. With the objective of net zero artificialization in 2050. In other words, for ecological reasons and to fight against urban expansion, expansion in virgin land becomes the exception. And densification, already underway, is the rule.

Toulouse and the 36 municipalities will therefore become more urbanized and the buildings will grow. But not just everywhere and how. To accommodate 9,000 new inhabitants per year (including 60% related to birth) – the objective of the Metropolis given its demographics – which corresponds to the construction of 7,400 housing units per year, the plan first determines the areas. The first zone (Toulouse, Blagnac and Colomiers) must receive 53,760 housing units, or 72% of the needs, including 64% in Toulouse. The second (Balma and Tournefeuille) 4,790 Then a first crown 10,040 and finally, the remaining common 5,790.

Other main principles: these new constructions, still not appreciated by the population, must be concentrated on public transport routes, starting with the 3rd metro line. The plan foresees 90% of the construction in these corridors. But also in places where town planning is regulated as ZAC.

It is thanks to an in-depth study of what is possible to build in already urbanized areas in Toulouse but also in the municipalities that these quotas could be determined. And Toulouse, with the 3rd line and its new districts, can still absorb most of the needs.

Advantage of densification: 97% of the natural areas of the territory are preserved in the new urban plan. The Metropolis plans to consume a reduced amount of natural land, 480 hectares maximum. The distribution of 382 of these hectares is already planned: 171 for housing, 54 for jobs… In this new urbanization map, Airbus and the aeronautical industry, also fall within a national envelope , are subject to the same rule of sobriety.