she wants to renovate her barn, the town hall wants to raze it

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During her walks in the town of Saint-Jouin-de-Blavou (Orne), Diane* often passed in front of: an old 19th century barn, fallow, abandoned, and located near a large farm. Built in rubble and earth, with a wooden frame and a tile roof.

In 2009, Diane came to see the owner of the adjacent farm to offer to buy the barn. “No one was interested in this little piece of land, it would have been a shame to abandon it”she supports. Quickly, the brand new owner had her head full of ideas, to make this barn “a little place to escape, a community space, open to all, to carry out creative workshops”.

But over the years, the situation would take an unexpected turn, pitting Diane's ideals against municipal obligations.

A barn weakened by work?

According to Diane, “the problems started in 2011”. “That year, sanitation work carried out near the barn weakened its structure,” she assures.

The following year, an assessment was carried out, at the request of the municipality, to find out whether the barn presented, in its condition, “a risk of collapse along the public road”. The expertise goes in this direction.

The owner feels aggrieved, considering that it was the town's sanitation work which initially weakened her barn. She will try, without success, to contest the danger order taken against her, by seeking answers from the mayor of the town, and from the company in charge of this work, in particular.

“The building has presented a potential risk for many years, for the safety of the owner, but also for that of local residents,” tells us Nicolas Laforêt, mayor of Saint-Jouin-de-Blavou.

Despite security, deterioration continues

“Deconstruction” work will be carried out following the assessment, in order to make the structure safe. Diane believes that this work, carried out on the upper part of the building, has further weakened the structure.

“This work has made the barn more exposed to climatic hazards,” she believes. While the owner had planned to carry out work to repair this barn, the deterioration of the premises “caused the bill for potential refurbishment to skyrocket”. The dream of a “beautiful barn open to all” now seemed very distant.

“I feel like I can’t do anything”

Finding herself blocked by this situation, Diane had no other choice than to gradually abandon the barn, regularly victim of the effects of the weather. The walls swelled with water with the rains. On the field side, the beautiful arch of the upper level is now in two pieces…

The day after heavy downpours, Diane went to the site to make a sad observation: “it pains me to see the barn in this state, it is suffering from the rain, is deteriorating, and I have the feeling of not being able to There’s nothing we can do about it.”

On the municipality's side, the problems are obviously not the same, “the property must be made secure again, because it has neither been maintained nor repaired”, supports the mayor of the municipality.

The standoff is still ongoing

In this sense, the mayor again referred the matter to the administrative court in 2024 to take stock of the situation, a second report recommends measures to secure the structure and users of the public domain.

For her part, the owner cannot come to terms with the demands made by this new endangerment procedure. “What they ultimately want is to raze my barn, I can't imagine such a situation,” says Diane.

In 2024, the owner also tried to have the municipality's failings recognized. While the ground is uneven, no ditch is present at the edge of the plot on the street side, notes a report carried out in March.

The future of the barn is currently still uncertain.

*The first name has been changed

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