Presented and contested!
The project for the extension of the Promenade du Paillon (with the demolition of the TNN and the Acropolis) was barely unveiled when Martine Bayard, the heir of the architect of the cultural complex of which a part is set to be demolished and behind which political opponents are lurking, took the matter to court.
The mayor’s projections in terms of economic benefits (for merchants, hoteliers, landowners, and residents) match his enthusiasm for the project to develop the green corridor increased by 8 hectares. This project would represent a carbon gain of 1,740 tons of CO2 per year provided by the “vast urban forest,” in addition to a temperature reduction of 2 to 3 degrees. Thanks to the 1,500 Mediterranean species trees planted, sequences of trees, and a watercourse that will meander through the entire length of the green corridor, things have not faltered, nor have they changed the situation.
Nor has the fact that more than 1 million visitors enjoy the 12 hectares of this small vegetated lung each year, which will become 20 hectares once the project is completed, with an anticipated increase in visitor numbers.
With “scientific” motivations for which they are credited, environmentalist elected officials are seizing this opportunity to invigorate their opposition, even though, at least theoretically, they should welcome anything that turns green! But as we know, in politics, logic often takes divergent paths!
For Martine Bayard, the daughter of Yves Bayard, the architect of the Promenade des Arts, it’s more a matter of the heart (even though her action is politically supported by Eric Ciotti, who has other agendas): “At the level of moral rights, nothing was done by the book. I must be warned of any transformation, renovation, etc., regarding my father’s work.”
A legal action has been initiated by Maitre Amaury Eglie-Richters on behalf of Martine Bayard and the ADPDA-YB, the Association for the Protection of the Promenade des Arts-Yves Bayard.
For these two claimants, he has filed a substantive appeal as well as a suspension application with the administrative court of Nice against the municipal council’s deliberation of December 10, 2021, approving the decommissioning and downgrading of the building housing the TNN and approving its demolition.
The suspension application will be heard this Wednesday, February 16, at 10 am at the administrative court of Nice.
