It is a bucolic alley like few others left in Paris, with its cobblestones, its green arches and its low houses that border the old workshops. But the calm of the rue des Thermopyles, at 14my district, may not last much longer: two former artists’ studios should be transformed into large-capacity furnished tourist accommodation and no one can legally object to this.
Led by a large real estate developer, the project plans to rehabilitate the two plots into five independent apartments with six to twelve beds, that is, forty-six beds in total, located at the bottom of a private courtyard, behind two three-story buildings. “We fear becoming the backdrop for a bachelor party.”laments Nicolas Laruelle, a concerned neighbor mobilized with the Cœur d’île Thermopyles collective, who still hopes to be able to change the situation.
The story began two years ago when the Terrot real estate group bought two workshops in poor condition behind numbers 37 and 37 bis. On this occasion, the neighbors discovered that these two pieces of land with a total area of 525 square meters are not as protected as the rest of the neighborhood and that it is theoretically possible to build tall buildings there.
Authorized project
As the local urban plan is currently being reviewed, residents take the opportunity to request a classification of these two areas to avoid any elevation that would obstruct light and visibility. After several conversations with the city council of 14myThe latter confirmed, during the district council meeting on Tuesday, November 12, where the issue was hotly debated, his choice to favor another type of classification that would limit the height to 7 meters, that is, 2 meters more than the existing one. This zoning would be more interesting from an environmental point of view because it would require, in particular, the revegetation of part of the plots and the waterproofing of the soil. It’s not enough to satisfy residents, who remain worried about a possible job.
Above all, a second, more specific problem arose when they discovered, at the end of October, the existence of a project to rehabilitate these workshops and convert them into large Airbnb-style tourist lofts. The project, presented to the Urban Planning Department in June, was tacitly authorized two months after its presentation, as is usual in prior work declarations.
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