The Var Plain… It’s Christian Estrosi’s big project. He wants to make this territory a symbol of his ambition to compete with Barcelona, while marking his new commitment to ecological demands.
“A few months before the municipal elections, it’s time for an assessment,” declares the Left Front candidate for the upcoming municipal elections in Nice.
And he adds: “Let’s overlook the governance problems of the OIN, which is experiencing its 6th director in a few years, let’s overlook the projects that are melting away like snow in the sun, such as the Exhibition Center, and limit ourselves to one aspect: the claim of making it a model of ecological development.
Christian Estrosi wanted to make it a symbol of his commitment to ecology: in reality, the ‘eco-valley’ is quickly transforming the Var plain into a genuine Market-valley where concrete and asphalt are in competition.
Thus in a few years, we will see more than 100,000 square meters of commercial spaces and just as many parking lots “springing up.” Between the extension of Cap 3000, the installation of Ikea, the accompanying real estate program next to the new stadium, not to mention nearby projects such as the Polygone Riviera in Cagnes, the Var plain will transform into a vast shopping center in a few years.
The argument of employment should not be misleading. As with companies in the OIN area, which are largely just transfers, the commercial establishments will result in closures or reductions elsewhere, particularly in the city center.
This development approach follows a very short-term logic, that of putting territories in competition. We must provide square meters of office space, commercial spaces with the corresponding road infrastructures and parking to transfer businesses and jobs that are currently located towards Antibes, Cannes, or even in the Var. This is the reality of Christian Estrosi’s grand vision.
It is a short-term vision, designed by a few experts more concerned with offering “opportunities” to a few large groups than with the future of our department, city, and its population.
As for the Var plain, agriculture is ultimately sacrificed, and the “ecological” aspect will be limited to a green park serving as a facade.
This facade green park of the “Eco-valley” in Estrosi’s version is to ecology what Indian reservations are to Native American civilizations… a vast dispossession of public space.”
