The 'Am Sand' area at the heart of Niederanven is set to be completely redeveloped over the coming decades.
Through the project, the municipality hopes to better manage its continued growth while preserving quality of life by bringing housing, workplaces, and leisure facilities closer together. The winning design from an architectural competition will now serve as the basis for a master plan to be implemented gradually through to 2050.
Niederanven's village centre has continued to develop over the years, but what is still missing is an overarching concept that connects its different areas and creates a genuine centre for the municipality as a whole.
This has become increasingly important as the municipality has grown rapidly in recent years and expects its population to continue increasing. According to mayor Frédéric Ternes, reorganising the "Am Sand" site is intended to help preserve quality of life while adapting public infrastructure to future needs.
"There is enormous pressure on the housing market, and over the past 15 years we have grown faster than the national average", Ternes said. "We therefore want to prepare ourselves as well as possible to manage that growth."
That would also mean ensuring that public infrastructure, including schools, childcare facilities, and sports amenities, keeps pace with development so that the municipality can maintain its current quality of life, he added.
To manage that growth sustainably, the municipality launched a competition for the redesign of its village centre. The winning proposal, submitted by architecture firm Dewey Muller, incorporates the municipality's vision of a so-called "15-minute" centre.
Christine Muller of Dewey Muller explained that the idea is for residents to be able to reach essential facilities within a 15-minute walk. "The aim is to give people the opportunity to walk or cycle, and even to be able to send a young person out to do some shopping without putting them in danger", she said.
Cars would no longer dominate the area, although they would not be excluded altogether, Muller said. "The car simply has to fit into a different hierarchy."
Alongside a complete redevelopment of the shopping centre, plans include expanding the school, after-school childcare centre, and sports complex.
Around five hectares have been earmarked for housing. Together with the two planned neighbourhoods of "Cité Jardin" and "Am Pull", the developments could add around 1,000 new homes.
Within the centre itself, however, the focus will be on smaller homes, Ternes explained.
"The aim is really to provide smaller homes in the 'Am Sand' centre, with denser development and smaller units, but more of them, particularly for young people and older residents who do not want a huge house", he said.
The plan is for the centre to consist mainly of multi-family residential buildings with smaller flats, which Ternes said are currently in particularly short supply.
The period up to 2030 will primarily be devoted to planning, with the first construction work expected to begin only after that point.
No estimate of the project's total cost is currently available. While the municipality will finance the public infrastructure, most of the housing is expected to be developed by private developers.
The plans also draw on extensive public participation, including workshops, neighbourhood walks, and input from children. The results of that consultation were then incorporated directly into the architectural competition.
