O SCOT de Montpellier

Abstract

"In 40 years, while the population has doubled (from 200 000 to 400 000 inhabitants), the urban space has risen by 10 fold (from 1 000 to 10 000 ha). The struggle against urban expansion is nowadays a priority." Montpellier's attractiveness has favored a fast and extensive growth of the city and its neighboring towns in the last decade. This has lead to the destruction of hundreds of hectares of agricultural land, wineries and woods. 100 000 new inhabitants are foreseen by 2020 due to the 1.6 % demographic growth per year. This demographic will affect the whole community. Therefore, to achieve an orderly growth of the territory from which Montpellier is the center city, the Agglomeration Community of Montpellier created between 2003 and 2006 their Schéma de Cohérence Territoriale (SCOT). This work, achieved with a multidisciplinary team represented by urban architect Bernard Reichen was the first to exist in France becoming part of the SCOT-models initiative. It is a strategic document that allows better articulation, in time and space, to the scale planning of an urban community, an agglomeration or a town. SCOT is the result of a strong political consensus between the several towns that constitute the community. It coordinates urban documents to the scale of town and those of the community at the same time being consistent with the Government objectives and programs. SCOT is comprised of three large steps: a diagnosis based on the knowledge and analysis of the land in order to define and explain the issues to be approached, a territory ordering project that allows sustainable development, structured by environmental, social and economic values, that give the orientation lines for the territory ordering, a document of general guidelines, that establishes the basis of the land organization in the form of a written document or graphic representation. The primary objectives of the Montpellier SCOT are to set the fundamental guidance for the territory ordering in such a way as to respect the balance between nature and city, to coordinate different public policies (mainly housing and public transports) on different scales and to stop urban fragmentation and expansion. There are established limits and intensities for the urban growth development associated with urban reinvestment and a new mean of urban mobility - the tramway. The tramway articulated with other forms of mobility should promote a generalized use of public transportation and at the same time reduce the dependence on the automobile. The challenge of SCOT is in the definition of the major guidelines for development of a community over the next 10 to 20 years by discussing multiple questions of common interest that exceed the scale of the town.