Coastline: new town planning rules to protect against erosion

Inexorably, the sea advances on the coasts. A quarter of the French coastline is already undergoing erosion. The problem is well known to Tregastelin the Cotes-d’Armor. On the beach of La Grève Rose, rocks were installed in 2017 to protect houses, threatened since the disappearance of the dam after a storm in 2008. “We lived with the idea that if nothing was done, we would lose ground”explains Georges Busson, owner of a house in La Grève Rose.

Although the riprap has been playing its role for five years, coastal erosion has not stopped. The government therefore wants to change the planning rules for the coast. In the most threatened areas, in the next 30 years, he wants to ban construction, except for public facilities. In the zones which will be threatened later, between 30 and 100 years, the constructions will be authorized, with an obligation to demolish in the long term. The areas will be defined by the municipalities concerned, which have four years to map the places.