Consultation in Cherbourg-en-Cotentin

It's summer, we're taking you to the beach!

For the past year, Res publica has been supporting several redevelopment projects in coastal towns well-known to vacationers: La Baule-Escoublac , Le Touquet-Paris Plage, and Cherbourg-en-Cotentin. These seafronts and their historic town centers are major public spaces, crucial to the identity of these seaside resorts and their surrounding areas. However, new uses (commercial, leisure, and mobility-related) are struggling to take hold and revitalize the image of these areas. As a result, despite their attachment to these iconic locations, some users are abandoning their public spaces due to a lack of appeal, accessibility issues caused by pedestrianization (particularly for people with reduced mobility), or competition from other commercial hubs. These are challenges our team already observed in 2018 during the Granville 2030 .

In reality, it is not easy to transition from a tourism model dating back to the 1970s and 80s, based on the dominance of the car, to more peaceful public spaces , which will profoundly impact the city's image and attractiveness for the next fifty years. Indeed, projects must simultaneously address the challenges of attractiveness (tourism development, commercial revitalization, modernization of the city's image, etc.) and those imposed by climate change (rising sea levels, urban heat islands, energy consumption, soil sealing, coastal erosion, etc.).

Consultation in La Baule-Escoublac

This implies a significant transformation of the practices and habits of residents, whether year-round or second-home owners, and users:

How can we rethink mobility by limiting the space allocated to cars (roads and parking) in favor of soft and active mobility as well as public transport? These are reflections that go beyond the framework of infrastructure, taking place at the municipal and inter-municipal levels for better accessibility and the calming of major public spaces.
How can we add greenery to meet the need to cool the city and improve the aesthetics of the area, despite the reluctance of some residents who fear an impact on the view from their balconies?

The merits of these projects are rarely questioned, but they do raise concerns that are being voiced during the consultation process : changes in how quickly accessed the seafront is affected, accessibility for people with reduced mobility, the potential creation of a green buffer, lack of parking and traffic lanes, loss of customers, the amount of investment required, etc. Given these circumstances, it is essential to discuss how cities can adapt to medium- and long-term challenges while addressing the expectations and concerns of the affected communities.

Involving citizens in the different stages of design

Whether it was to outline the specifications for the project management team, as in Le Touquet, or at each stage of developing the preliminary design, as in Cherbourg-en-Cotentin and La Baule, citizens began by assessing the project's challenges : what works today? what needs to change? They then engaged in discussions with designers and elected officials throughout the project's development. This citizen-led process allowed for the search for consensus, without ignoring differences of opinion, regarding expectations, recommendations, and proposals for specific actions.

Consultation in La Baule-Escoublac

To compare viewpoints in order to arrive at a shared solution

During discussions about the future of our seaside towns, two diametrically opposed visions emerge:

On the one hand, these significant changes are of concern to residents (permanent or secondary), often retired, who are particularly invested due to ingrained habits, emotional stakes and the appreciation of their assets.
On the other hand, residents with strong ambitions want a more radical and rapid change .

The challenge then becomes moving beyond individual stances and usage-based diagnoses to confront viewpoints and develop collective approaches. It is necessary to take the time, beyond diagnosis, to discuss long-term changes in practices in order to generate proposals resulting from deliberation among stakeholders.

Reaching out to audiences who are distant from the debate

These seaside towns concern not only their primary residents, but also groups generally absent from consultations , namely: second-home owners, residents of neighboring towns, shopkeepers and tourism professionals, tourists themselves, and young people who use the coastal public space in their own way. Consultation, as a crucial moment for the future of these towns, must absolutely involve all these groups by listening to them and combining their perspectives: workshops dedicated to shopkeepers, on-site meetings including during the summer, festive gatherings, participatory exercises with the Youth Council, projects with high school students, etc. By organizing these methods and reaching out to these groups, Res publica has gathered the concerns of each so that they can be taken into account by the project managers and project owners in the design of the project, step by step .

Like any development project, the transformation of coastal cities necessitates changes in lifestyles and social connections . This raises the question of how to make these changes acceptable: under what conditions can we collectively reduce the role of cars? How can we collectively prepare for rising sea levels and urban heat islands? These debates call for technical solutions, but above all, shared political solutions to initiate lifestyles adapted to the coming years. Sharing the challenges and proposals of all stakeholders allows us to develop a collective, albeit diverse, vision of the coastal city of tomorrow! Res publica is enthusiastic and will continue to support the transformation of lifestyles on the coast, involving residents and users at every stage of the projects.

Gilles-Laurent RAYSSAC, Sophie GUILLAIN, Tania DESFOSSEZ,
Irene ROSSETTI, Marie CASANELLES and Frédéric FIATTE

August 2022