The issue of water supply is increasingly regularly being raised in debates when it comes to granting or refusing a building permit. Last March, decisions by town halls establishing a virtual freeze on building permits to prevent the risk of water shortages were challenged in court. In this case, mentioned by Vosges Morning Regarding the rally driver, nine-time world champion, Sébastien Loeb, it is the neighbors who are united against him. While hammering home that it is not a problem of one person or the fact that he is a celebrity, a group of owners of the hamlet of Grand Valtin, are fighting against the driver’s plan to build a chalet next to their home.
The cause: a large-scale second home project, since there is talk of a footprint of 500 m² on the ground in a hamlet with fewer than 80 inhabitants (year-round or in second homes) and which has been experiencing water restrictions and situations of “water stress” for several years. Questioned by the local press, Sylvia Didierdefresse, mayor of the commune of Ban-sur-Meurthe-Clefcy on which the hamlet depends, recalls that the first building permit had been cancelled. “We can no longer accommodate new homes [au risque de priver] our tap water residents”she assured.
Real estate investment
Except that the second building permit mentions that the chalet would be supplied by a reservoir fed by another source. And in the absence of formal acceptance, the silence of the elected official, who considered that she had no solid grounds for opposition, became tacit acceptance. Not enough to satisfy the local residents, especially since one of them pointed out the fact that the water reserve in question is not located on the plot of the Alsatian pilot and that a request for connection to the municipal drinking water network had nevertheless been made. Several of them are thus annoyed by the restrictions they are already subject to and which should, according to them, prohibit any new installation.
While Sébastien Loeb did not wish to respond to these attacks, Mayor Sylvia Didierdefresse gave him the benefit of the doubt. The councillor believes that the pilot was probably not aware of the town’s difficulties with water for a construction project that “looks like a real estate investment to offer this chalet for rental“This will not prevent the angry owners, organized into a collective, from approaching a lawyer to organize the response. They intend to contest the building permit in court by September 14, the legal deadline for action.
