Flooded homes: The government has relaxed the decree for the reconstruction

News 19 July, 2017

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Vincent Larin

Wednesday, 19 July, 2017 15:37

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Wednesday, 19 July, 2017 15:37

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The government has relaxed the decree that establishes the manner in which the houses flooded last spring can be reconstructed. This is in response to a public consultation where the citizens affected had expressed their dissatisfaction in this regard.

Previously, the government had decided that if the cost of repair exceeded 50 % of their land value, they could not be rebuilt.

However, this situation was creating “inequities” between some of the properties are more luxurious and others are more modest, said the minister of public Safety, Martin Coiteux in a press conference Wednesday.

Group of houses

Also, the government will allow municipalities to file an application for exemption for groups of houses, some of which would not have been able to be reconstructed otherwise.

This change should help avoid that some neighborhoods are dévitalisent so that some houses could have been rebuilt and others are not.

Many criteria, however, are required to obtain this exemption.

These changes are the result of a series of public consultations that were held this month to gather the opinion of citizens in 15 of the regions affected by the severe floods of last spring.

About 2100 citizens participated in these meetings, ” said minister Coiteux.

Reconstruction Plan

On 22 June, the government had presented a plan which established the reconstruction process for houses located in areas of the so-called “mainstream”. In these areas, the houses have about a 5% chance of experiencing flooding each year, or once every 20 years.

According to this plan, the owners of these houses had to evaluate their homes by inspectors of the department of public Safety, before undertaking the reconstruction work.

If they had been completely destroyed, they were considered dangerous to the health, or if the cost of repair exceeded 50 % of their land value, they could not be rebuilt.