Coastal erosion was at the center of the annual congress of the Vendée association of elected representatives of the coast, this Tuesday, in Saint-Hilaire-de-Riez. If the Climate and Resilience law has transferred to local authorities, and therefore to town halls, the task of redeveloping it, the question of financing remains.
Who will have to pay for the redevelopment of the coast, victim of a slow but inexorable erosion? This was one of the main issues under discussion on Tuesday at Saint-Hilaire-de-Riez in Vendee. A hundred local elected officials were gathered for the annual congress of the AVEL, the Vendée association of elected officials from the coast chaired by the mayor of Les Sables d’Olonne Yannick Moreau. 12 years after the Xynthia storm, awareness seems real among elected officials. Everyone knows that we will no longer be able to develop as before. But the question of “who does what” and especially “who pays what” divides. In 2021 the Climate and Resilience law transferred responsibility for planning to communities. “Inevitably, if there is a transfer of responsibility without the means to do so, there will be a showdown” -warns the mayor of Saint-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie François Blanchet – “Who will pay for the expropriations if there are any? Who will pay the pre-emptions? Who will pay for the buyback of the houses? Who will pay for the works against the sea? And here we are talking about millions or even billions of euros”. The president of the departmental council of Vendée Alain Leboeuf also appeals to the solidarity of the State: “The town planning of our coastline has been authorized by the State, apart from this rise in sea level due to global warming cannot be due to the inhabitants of the coast”.
If there is a transfer of responsibility without the means to do so, there will be arm wrestling. François Blanchet mayor of Saint-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie
Another point of view was expressed by the voice of the LREM deputy from the Vendée coast and author of a report on coastal erosion Stephane Buchou. He suggests increasing the percentage of transfer duties (tax during real estate sales) and assigning this amount “the financing of the adaptation of our coastal territories in the face of climate change”. Everyone is now watching for the ordinance supposed to clarify the law on this major point of financing. “The law will distinguish the municipalities which will be responsible for carrying out their own mapping” -Explain Gaelle Cognet, lawyer at the Paris bar specialist in the environment – “and the main difficulty is what form of financing to associate with this form of transfer of competence (…) Is it simply the responsibility of the coastal communities or do we organize a fund at the national scale to support this adaptation process? “
The President of France Nature Environment Vendée Yves Le Quellec see in these “bickers a return of the ball”. And to conclude: “We have to act and everyone has to get on with it, now we have to find the means to also involve the population in new development methods”.
– Yves-Rene Tapon