Par
Laurine Pollavini
Published on
Dec 11 2024 at 9:06 a.m.
See my news
Follow Le Courrier Vendéen
The public rapporteur recommended to the administrative court of appeal of Nantes, this Tuesday, December 3, 2024, to cancel the building permits which had been granted in 2018 by the mayor of Commequiers (Vendée) to the “industrial greenhouses” carried by the real estate company (SCI) of L'Aujouère.
The building permits had precisely been issued in February 2018 to four companies. In the meantime they have been grouped into a single building permit granted to the SARL des Serres de l'Aujouère.
Two residents and a collective are contesting
These four contiguous greenhouses of « organic » hors sol tomatoes, with a surface area of 30,000 m² each, planned “on around fifteen plots” and with a total area of 263,000 m²have been contested from the start by two local residents.
The Collective for Tranquility and Rural Life (CTVR) – chaired by the first of the two applicants – is also a party to the case. Dismissed in July 2022 by the court administrative office of Nantes, the applicants therefore appealed.
Greenhouses more than 300 meters from homes
As a reminder, the judges of first instance had estimated that if they live next to the greenhouses, the two local residents could not claim the status of “immediate neighbors”, an imperative in town planning law, insofar as “several roads separate them” and one lives “600 meters” from the project, and the other “a little over 300 meters”.
The Nantes administrative court also ruled that the two applicants limited themselves to “reporting the visual damage” to their environment and the “impact” of the project on “road traffic”, but that their “not very convincing” and “not substantiated” elements were “seriously” contested by “a bailiff’s report” produced by the market gardeners and the municipality.
A “profoundly transformed” living environment
During the appeal hearing, the public rapporteur considered on the contrary that the living environment of at least one of the applicants was “profoundly transformed”so that his “interest in acting” was proven.
Above all, on the merits, the public rapporteur – whose opinions are often followed by judges – concluded that the project constituted a “single real estate complex” which should have been the subject of a “single permit” and not a “salami” which could have resulted in the “circumvention” of certain rules of law…
The lawyer for the Collective for Tranquility and Rural Life and the two local residents highlighted “the significant impact” of these “industrial greenhouses” on his clients’ properties in terms of “devaluation”.
Basically, he affirmed that the “salamiction of the project” into four separate greenhouses had prevented the commune of Commequiers from having a “global vision”.
“A hundred jobs” at stake according to the State
The municipality's lawyer maintained that “the investigating department always had perfect knowledge of the entire project”, and was supported in this by the market gardeners' lawyer. Two of them were also present at the hearing.
As a reminder, local residents had already managed to cancel the exemption from the ban on the destruction of protected species which had been granted to the market gardeners of Saint-Philbert-de-Grand-Lieu. State services then appealed, but without success.
“The Minister of Ecological Transition maintains that the project (…) is likely to generate around a hundred jobs in a basin which presents a more degraded situation than that of others (…) in the Vendée department”, justified the Nantes administrative court of appeal in December 2022.
“However (…) there is no element (…) to ensure the viability of these forecasts. » Concerning the legality of building permits, the court has reserved its decision and will deliver its ruling in the coming weeks.
Follow all the news from your favorite cities and media by subscribing to Mon Actu.
