Some municipalities in Eure have difficulty complying with fire safety legislation, which prevents residents from obtaining a building permit.
In Chavigny-Bailleul, in Eure, the external defense regulations against fire (DECI), who organizes the means used against fires, has become a headache for the mayor and his citizens.
To alert this problem, residents and elected officials go up to the niche and hope for a change in fire safety legislation so that it is more suitable for rural areas.
Too much necessary investments
The mayor of Chavigny-Bailleul, Gérard Asmonti found himself faced with a problem to put the town in compliance when he took office in 2020. “In the town we had 15 hydrants and there were five who did not have the right speed”, tells BFM Normandie Gérard Asmonti.
Since 2015, the law has imposed a maximum distance of 200 meters between a home and a fire terminal in Eure. Consequently, “eight places in the town were not managed by the fire defense”.
“We had 12 fire terminals to put in place, which is impractical,” said Gérard Asmonti.
On these 12 missing fire terminals, only four could be set up by the town hall. To install the remaining eight, the town hall would need to invest 200,000 euros and buy eight land. However, no land is for sale.
A brake on the construction of new houses
Regulations are also a problem for local residents. For the past two years, Françoise, a resident of Chavigny-Bailleul, has systematically refused her building permit requests, because her land is too far from the nearest fire terminal.
“I have this land on which I would like to build houses, I cannot because this land is outside the legal distance from a fire mouth,” explains Françoise.
To alert to the situation, Françoise sent a letter to the Senator of the Eure, Hervé Maurey, who made the fire defense in the department his workhorse.
“Today, I am hopeful that things will finally evolve since, following the very recent circular of the Minister of the Interior, all the prefects are asked to take stock of the implementation of the departmental regulations on their territory and then to initiate a revision of this regulation if it turns out – which is obviously the case in Eure – that there are difficulties”, explains the centrist senator.
Prefects have until the end of 2025 to take stock of this subject.
Timothée Peigney with Pauline Lecouvé
