Yesterday @Lee and I went scouting. As we did find two sites that could potentially be passed onto the architects for feasibility studies, we immediately had the problem of assessing whether it would even be realistic to buy the site?
An example from yesterday is a large house in ruins, in a beautiful, huge green plot in Rue de la Laiterie 57. Is anything going on there? You can check by entering the address in OpenPermits, like I did here. The situation is complicated: a request entered in 2018 to make 75 apartments (!) was withdrawn. An earlier request, for renovation, was entered in 2015 and appears to be still pending (!!).
I would like to ask @reef-building to ask the architects how we treat this kind of information. If a permit is pending, does it mean that we should not bother to get in touch with the owner? What would be a “good” result? For example, look at the ex-ATOMA factory across the street from me, currently squatted: a permit to make 37 apartments was requested in 2017 and refused in February. What does this mean for us? That we are looking at a controversial, difficult building and we should leave it alone? That the Commune de Forest is too slow in processing permits? That the owner is probably exasperated and happy to sell, and we can get a less commercial, smaller project with some green space authorized?
More in general, I would welcome a sort of manual to assess whether a building should be passed over to the architects or not.
By the way here is the record of the plot that Sebastien saw. 18 apartments authorized… I don’t think they will sell, though worth a shot.
