Stop the noise and nuisance! No to the permit applications for the municipal site Vandenbroeck.

Verzoekschrift gericht aan: Collège des Bourgmestre et Échevins de la Commune d'Ixelles / Commission de concertation d'Ixelles

PETITION against the permit applications for the municipal site at Vandenbroeck
(files 09/PFD/1998763 and 09/IPE/2024680)

We, the undersigned, are residents and visitors of the immediate vicinity of the municipal technical centre on Rue Vandenbroeck, located between Rue Vandenbroeck, Wayenberg and Sceptre. This is a very densely built residential neighbourhood of Ixelles: three streets of terraced houses that almost completely surround this site, with gardens and bedrooms that look directly onto it. Most of these terraced houses are, moreover, occupied by several households per floor, which makes the number of directly affected families even greater than the number of houses would suggest.

For years, this neighbourhood has suffered serious nuisance from the activities on this municipal site: noise pollution from early morning until late evening, and manoeuvring garbage trucks and heavy vehicles. Only after repeated intervention by Brussels Environment did some improvement occur. The current permit applications threaten to undo that improvement.

Since 2011 already, the municipality has been promising a green inner garden at this location. That promise was repeated in 2020 following an interpellation backed by 86 signatures, and confirmed again in 2021 after intervention by the regional urban planning and environment services. Since then, however, the municipality has given no further sign of life, and we are still waiting for the promised green garden. Instead, the municipality now suddenly wants to use this site structurally as a parking and manoeuvring area for large vehicles and garbage trucks.

This is not an ordinary regularisation of an existing situation, but a genuine expansion of activities on the site: the number of covered parking spaces increases from 72 to 113, and the municipality explicitly requests to once again be allowed to park garbage trucks in the inner courtyard during the midday break (precisely the practice that was abolished by Brussels Environment following earlier complaints). Two new storage facilities for hazardous substances are also being added, and the current workshop is being converted into an additional storage hangar for large vehicles.

Even the municipality's own noise studies show that the legal noise standards for our residential zone (zone 2) are structurally exceeded, including during the day, when the reversing alarms of the garbage trucks beep continuously. In the evening, at weekends and on Sundays, even stricter standards apply, which are likewise not met.

The same file also shows that the electrical installations on the site do not comply with legal safety standards, and that the soil is polluted with nickel, benzene and mineral oil, right next to our gardens and homes.

We oppose:

• the use of the inner courtyard for parking and manoeuvring garbage trucks and other vehicles;
• the storage of dangerous, flammable or explosive substances in the middle of our residential neighbourhood;
• the scrapping of the green inner garden promised for years — precisely now that more greenery in the city is needed to counter heat stress and climate warming;
• the use of vehicles that are too heavy, such as garbage trucks, in streets that are far too narrow for this;
• the expansion of the number of parking spaces;
• and above all: the endless noise pollution that all these activities bring with them.

 
We ask the College of Mayor and Aldermen and the Consultation Committee to reject the permit applications in their current form, and to finally give our neighbourhood the calm, green and liveable environment that has been promised to us for years.