PARIS (AFP) — Paris city council on Tuesday moved to scrap a 30-year-old ban on high-rise buildings inside the city walls, a decision that could spell a revolution for the capital's skyline.
The Socialist mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoe, has championed a change to rules that currently limit the height of inner-city buildings to 37 metres (122 feet), despite polls showing that two-thirds of Parisians oppose the change.
The 37-metre ceiling was brought in 197 in response to a string of high-rise projects -- including the Montparnasse tower south of the River Seine -- now seen as failed experiments in urbanism.
On Tuesday, Paris city council voted to launch a study on easing the planning rules, paving the way for the construction of 200-metre towers at six emblematic sites just inside the city walls.
Public consultations will begin in January to measure support for each of the projects, according to city councillor for urbanism Anne Hidalgo.
Cast as part of wide-ranging regeneration plans for the sites, the new tower blocks would mix shops, offices and childcare centres.
Delanoe also supports the construction of new 50-metre apartment blocks to counter a shortage of affordable housing in the capital.
French star architect Jean Nouvel, who last month won a contract to build a new skyscraper in La Defense business district west of Paris, has criticised the taboo on high-rises, saying they should be allowed even in the city centre.
"This is not about undermining our heritage. But we have to stop thinking that Paris is a museum-city," Nouvel told Le Parisian newspaper. "Paris is not finished... If vertical buildings can enrich the heart of the capital, why deprive ourselves?"
Delanoe has long campaigned to end the high-rise ban, but was blocked during his first term as mayor by his Green party allies on the city council, who oppose the plans on grounds of energy efficiency.
But the mayor was comfortably re-elected in March without support from the Greens, allowing him to take a second shot at the rules.
"Parisians are uncomfortable with the very idea of high-rise buildings: polls say so quite clearly. But the duty of public officials us to be guided by the general interest, rather than polls," Delanoe told the city council ahead of the vote.
The Socialist majority on the city council pushed through the plans despite opposition from both the Greens and the right-wing UMP party, which supports plans for high-rise office towers but not apartment blocks.
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