“It’s a time bomb that weighs millions of euros,” alarms Maël de Calan. In the current financial storm, the departmental majority had identified a dormant file, ready to explode in their faces: that of the fate of the department’s 40 gendarmerie barracks. Since 2007, Finistère has been linked to an investment fund (Atlante gestion) for the management of its barracks. This long administrative lease (BEA) provided that the Société des barracks du Finistère (SCF) assumed this financial burden until 2042 in exchange for a check for €46.30 million (including €22 million for renovations) to the Department. A tidy sum which had brought happiness to the majority then in place. The economic balance for the SCF was based on the collection of rents to be collected over 35 years.
“A disastrous contract”
“It’s a disastrous contract,” points out the president of the departmental council who finds himself under a contractual obligation to ensure the overdraft of the SCF account. The latter now has a deficit of €6.90 million. In total, the expenditure could reach €32 million to be borne by the Department. This unfavorable legal situation leads the Department to pay rent for disused barracks to the SCF until 2042.
This is particularly the case in Arzano and Telgruc-sur-Mer. The urgency for the Department is now to exit this BEA, as the Morbihan departmental council has just done. Because the contract has already cost the Department €450,000. The negotiation is all the more complex as the German bank from which SCF took out loans has gone bankrupt. “It has become very exotic,” annoys Maël de Calan who fears, in addition to the cost of this operation, of recovering buildings in poor condition, the SCF having allocated insufficient resources to their maintenance.
Each contract termination amendment is, for the moment, strictly negotiated. “Will the Department be able to support this additional debt? » asks Maël de Calan who hopes to negotiate a work plan with the gendarmerie to obtain an increase in rents. As for the deserted buildings, which embarrass mayors, they could be sold to social landlords or private developers. The subject will be debated in substance in plenary session, but not before 2025.
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