Belgian Nobel prize winner distances himself from real estate project

About 200 people gathered in the Brussels commune of Ixelles/Elsene yesterday at the initiative of the collective Sauver la Plaine, to protest against the controversial real estate project Universalis Park.

The controversy concerns La Plaine Ixelles/Oefenplein on the campus of the ULB, the French-speaking university in Brussels, a green area of more than seven hectares. The site is threatened by a running project under the name Universalis Park, a real estate development of luxury flats. According to the protestors, the site is of great value for biodiversity, and its development would be detrimental to the local flora and fauna.

Following the protest, the Belgian physicist and 2013 Nobel prize laureate François Englert asked not to be associated with the project, referring to the news that a street in Universalis Park would be named after him.