He wanted to build in the middle of the forest in Gironde, an owner prohibited from clearing his land

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The administrative court of Bordeaux dismissed a forest owner, against whom the prefect of Gironde had opposed both the provisions of the town planning code and those of the forest code to prevent him from clear your land in Grayan-et-l’Hôpital (Gironde), in the tip of Médoc.

This owner actually wanted to be able to clear “0.0275 ha” of his plot – located on Chemin de la Carougneyre, west of departmental road 1215 – for “a construction project”. But the prefect was there opposite on September 5, 2022, which pushed him to take the matter to the Bordeaux administrative court to achieve his goals.

Preserving the ecosystem

The “maintenance of the forest destination” of this plot was in fact “made necessary for the protection from fire risks”, considered the state services. According to Fabienne Buccio, the clearing would also have been likely to “harm the preservation (…) of the ecosystem”.

The land is located, from an urban planning point of view, on a plot “without housing” and “densely wooded”, begins by resituating the administrative court of Bordeaux in a judgment dated September 18, 2024 and which has just been made public.

It is “more than a km from the town center” of Grayan-et-l’Hôpital, from which it is separated by “a vast natural space on which it opens. And “if buildings forming the locality of Daugagnan are built to the north and east (…), this locality is made up of individual houses located scattered along traffic routes”, he describes.

Increased fire risk

It is therefore a “loose urbanization zone distinct from existing towns and villages” within the meaning of the town planning code. However, “even though the locality of Daugagnan is identified (…) as a hamlet where the densification is possible » in the Territorial Coherence Scheme (SCOT) of Pointe du Médoc, it has still not been “previously identified” as an “already urbanized sector”. It is therefore “only” a “space of diffuse urbanization”, reformulates the Bordeaux administrative court in other words.

This land cannot therefore be “considered as being in continuity with an existing urban area or village”, only places where urbanization is still possible in coastal areas. This construction project would therefore have had the effect of “a prohibited extension of urbanization” and would in short be contrary to the principle of combating urban sprawl.

In addition, the applicant’s plot is located “in the blue zone” of the Forest Fire Risk Prevention Plan (PPRIF): this corresponds to “a low to medium hazard danger with good defensibility” and means that “fires can directly threaten people and property already established.” The area is also covered by the interdepartmental plan for the protection of forests against the fires (PidPFCI) Gironde / Landes / Lot-et-Garonne / Dordogne against fire: the Landes de Gascogne massif is identified as “particularly exposed” to fire risk for the period 2019-2029.

“If the plot only contains deciduous trees, it is part of a larger area particularly exposed to fire risk, which is classified in unbuildable red zone danger of strong hazard”, underline the Bordeaux judges. This risk is also “increased by human activities near the forest massif”.

The realization of the project carried out by the applicant would therefore imply “an increase in the length of interface between human activities and the forest”, they deduce. “It thus increases a fire risk already intrinsic to the area. » The prefect of Gironde was therefore entitled to oppose to its clearing.

CB (PressPepper)

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