Housing: a forgotten emergency plan

This was to be one of the major plans of the new term of office. The one that was to resolve, in successive stages, the island's thorny housing problem. Or rather, the lack of available and affordable housing. In the end, nothing. Or almost nothing. At the very least, nothing that can be sustained under the "Emergency Plan" devised by the elected members of the Territorial Council and voted on July 13, 2023. Clearly, the urgency invoked was not really an urgency at all. Not to the point, however, of finding the means to unite our efforts in work and reflection. As a result, the famous and now-defunct Housing Emergency Plan came to an end when its extension was rejected at the Territorial Council meeting on Thursday September 5.
Even before it got underway, the meeting did not look promising. If the extension of the "Plan d'urgence logement" (emergency housing plan) made it to the meeting, it was only because of the insistence of the Action-Équilibre group. Elected members of the group formed by Marie-Hélène Bernier for the March 2022 election campaign demanded by letter that the extension be examined. First on July 31, then again on August 13. The President of the Collectivité, Xavier Lédée, then had no choice but to include the deliberation drafted by the Action-Équilibre group on the Territorial Council's agenda.

Deadline expired
The first problem that arose when the deliberation was being examined, but which was not raised until late in the meeting, was that the deadline for validating the plan had expired at the end of July. In fact, article 1 of the deliberation of July 13, 2023 stipulated that the urban planning commission was to draw up and propose "within a maximum period of one year from the date of the deliberation" a draft plan for the new town. of the deliberation" a comprehensive project including regulatory provisions to be inserted into the town planning, housing and construction code. As none of these conditions had been met by September 5, it seemed difficult to extend the plan. This state of affairs did not, however, prevent elected officials from arguing over who was responsible for what.

A friendly exchange between Xavier Lédée and Maxime Desouches
Starting with President Lédée and his fourth vice-president, Maxime Desouches. From the outset, the two elected representatives exchanged reproaches. Maxime Desouches said he didn't understand why the extension of the "Plan d'urgence logement" had not been put on the agenda of a territorial council meeting before it expired. "It was the most important item of the mandate in terms of control", he insisted. And the Chairman retorted that he had received no minutes of the various meetings held by the Urban Planning Commission on the subject. "The work to provide the content of the exchanges has not been done", asserted Xavier Lédée. However, Maxime Desouches assures us: "All the reports have been available from the urban planning department for some time. "Serenely, Xavier Lédée retorts: "I haven't received any minutes of the meetings. "Then he addresses his fourth vice-president: "You resigned as chairman of the commission, then you prevented the commissions from taking place. Yes, we're behind schedule because not enough work has been done. The housing part of the code has not been worked on. You didn't work. "Needless to say, Maxime Desouches couldn't leave it at that. This way of passing the buck to others is quite unbearable," he says. It's all the president's responsibility. We're wasting time, looking for excuses. We've had seven meetings and a lot of work has been done. But if the tactic is to put everything off until tomorrow, we're not going to make it. "

"I don't see the urgency".
Other elected representatives tried to open the debate on the content of the now-defunct "Housing Emergency Plan". Without much success. Romaric Magras, for Saint-Barth d'Abord, did try, however. After noting, quite appropriately, that "nothing has been done in a year" since the plan was voted on, he listed the proposals that had been postponed by the elected representatives. This was followed by an exchange with Maxime Desouches, with the president turning his head from right to left like a spectator at Roland-Garros. "Romaric Magras insists: "I don't see the urgency, since nothing has been done.
Marie-Hélène Bernier, first vice-president of the company, also made her point. "We campaigned in 2022 on a desire to curb urbanization, and everyone complains that there isn't enough housing for the people who live on the island, so what are we waiting for? "No answer. Or rather, one, formulated by the third vice-president, Marie-Angèle Aubin. "It's time we all sat down and worked on the housing issue. "Coming from an elected representative serving her third term on the territorial council, the proposal is, to say the least, tasty.

"Fear of making decisions
More direct, as usual, councillor Dimitri Lédée questions the assembly: "We need to think about what we're leaving behind. Let's ask ourselves the question. We're always going round in circles because we're afraid to make decisions. "A new salvo of various proposals and measures was launched. But without much enthusiasm or conviction. In fact, only one of them was not clearly formulated: that of changing the town planning, housing and construction code.
Deciding to break with his usual discretion, Councillor Olivier Gréaux took the floor. His intention was clear: to expose the inconsistencies between the "Plan Urgence logement" and the deliberation. In particular, he mentions the "artistic vagueness" surrounding the notion of secondary residence. "Normal, we don't have a housing code", he ironizes, before continuing: "We're trying to put in place rules that don't exist in town planning. "He adds, on the subject of the surseoir à statuer: "There's no clear-cut basis for using it. Does it depend on the mood of the day? The petitioner's mind? "Questions that remain without a truly convincing answer.
In conclusion, during the vote, the six elected members of the presidential group (Xavier Lédée, Marie-Angèle Aubin, Mélissa Lake, Olivier Gréaux, Caroline Maurel and Fabrice Querrard) voted against extending the plan, the six from Action-Équilibre (Marie-Hélène Bernier, Bettina Cointre, Maxime Desouches, Pascale Minarro Baudoin, David Blanchard and Dimitri Lédée, with Jonas Brin absent) voted in favor and the five from Saint-Barth d'Abord (Romaric Magras, Micheline Jacques, Francius Matignon, Rudi Laplace and Sandra Baptiste, with Alexandra Questel absent) abstained.
The emergency will wait.