Commentarii Mathematici Helvetici

We give a local characterization of the existence of Kazhdan projections for arbitary families of Banach space representations of a compactly generated locally compact group $G$. We also define and study a natural generalization of the Fell topology to arbitrary Banach space representations of a locally compact group. We give several applications in terms of stability of rigidity under perturbations. Among them, we show a Banach-space version of the Delorme--Guichardet theorem stating that property (T) and (FH) are equivalent for $\sigma$-compact locally compact groups. Another kind of applications is that many forms of Banach strong property (T) are open in the space of marked groups, and more generally every group with such a property is a quotient of a compactly presented group with the same property. We also investigate the notions of central and non central Kazhdan projections, and present examples of non central Kazhdan projections coming from hyperbolic groups.