Selfsufficientish.com

Hi All !!....

I dont post on here because I dont get near a pc much.....

My brother -in - law moved to France some 5 years ago after spending a lengthy time down in Somerset, Stoke St, Gregory in fact .Jamie AKA FLY lived in his ex - BR van then sold it and bought a yurt.Around the same time he went travelling round Europe , finally settling in a small village in Bretagne where he now lives with his girlfriend .

He purchased a small parcel of woodland ,after going through the correct channels of talking with the local Mayor etc Finally moving his Girlfriend in around 2 years ago,

Since then, he has addded a new Yurt , on the side of his existing one simply for a happier life from his GF,This is where he installed a small water shower, hot water coming from the woodburner in the main tent.

Although the yurt is in a wooded , secluded location, not viewable from the road , the Mayor has now sought to move him on - from his own land...citing that the yurt is an eyesore etc etc...

His petition can be signed online.....

http://www.ipetitons.com/petition/yourte56

I would very much like you all to sign this petition as he as always embodied the ideal of the Free Spirit and has enthralled us all at family gatherings with his tales .....

It would be a shame for him to lose his right to live as he sees fit and become as I say "At the mercy od the StormTroopers"

Many Thanks for allowing me to post,,,,and feel free to add any contacts or advice as any thing ,no matter how small ,is much appreciated.

Cheers Thomas , North Wales , UK

Hi Thomas,
Do you have any pictures of the yurt? It sounds lovely.

I've signed the petition - had difficulty finding it as there's a typo in the link but found it and signed.
It's in French and I can't understand a word of it, so I hope you're for real Thomas

Marc

This one should work, it's from the email they sent me.
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/yourte56/?e

i've signed too, being a yurt-dweller myself :)

Hi Marc , Hi All,

In reply to your post ,yes im am for real, having been his brother in law for 25+ years ......

presumably if he sent you the email you too must know him, and therefore know im telling the truth.....

I explained to him last night that it would help his cause if he re-wrote his plea bi-lingually , but at the moment he doesnt have regular accsess to pc.

Ive done my bit , i was asked by my M-I-L to see if i could get some interest on the net...Ive done my bit its up to him now .

hello thomas,many thanks for publisizing our cause via this very interesting site (keep up the good work admin).

as thomas says,we live in a yurt in le morbihan brittany in roughly 6 acres of coniforous forest which we purchased last april.
we have lived there tranquilly since signing up to a letter arriving on christmas eve(merry xmas!!!!).
the letter was a demand from the local mayor asking us to remove our yurt from this land by the 10.01.09, if not he shall pass the procedure of eviction over to the courts.
I have lived in the yurt since 2000 and 7 of these years in france(not 5 thomas,but at our age a bit of senility is tollerated).
the first 6 years here i have peacefully rented land on which to install the yurt,and i use the word install there with good reason ,as within legal litigation the yurt is classified as an installation and not as a construction.
I can not speak for the legalalities of siting a yurt in the uk as i have spent the best part of the last decade off the island,spending a little time in the south pacific islands then moving out to the european mainland shortly after my return to the northern hemisphere.
I may however speak with confidence about the legalities of yurt life here in france,as i have put time into studying the laws,bylaws and litigation concerning our chosen way of life.
we have the right to live in a yurt without planning permission if the yurt is less than 35m2 which is a diametre of 6.6 metres,and also if the yurt does not have any foundations ie:cement or concrete.
Our current problem has stemmed from someone complaining to the mayor that they do not find it acceptable that we have the right to live in our yurt in the forest when they were recently turned away with a planning application for the erection of a large garden shed.(a real touch of humanity dont you think?).on top of this we would appear to have bought land in a commune where the mayor is anti environmental progress and is without a doubt(although he denies this) anti alternative dwellings or eco-construction.

we have been in touch with many associations,eco-magazines,green parties and the likes and have brought the situation streaming into the public domain to try and highlight the oppression shown towards people like us,who are trying to make a much needed difference to our injured planet.
the support that we have received not only locally but nationally has been somewhat overwhelming.in fact if we were to lose this legal battle(not an option within the laws of positivity) we would walk away with an even stronger belief than before in humanity.
The mayor is trying to remove us by saying we are in infraction of the "code d'urbanisme" which is a sort of countryside code set up to regulate the beautiful french counrtyside.This said code is a good idea in some senses,but it only protects the countyside from a "bureaucratique" viewpoint and as i am sure ,the majority of you who use this forum understand that the protection of our woodlands needs a hands-on approach also.
when we bought this terrain,it was in a dire state of health due to the flourishing growth of vines and ivy which were destroying many of the mature oaks,beech and chestnuts.we have spend months of hard work with careful eco-management to create an even richer bio-diversity by opening up different sorts of habitat on the land which in turn has greatly increased the number of species,even in such a short space of time.
The environment is of paramount importance to us and it is our chosen quest to serve and protect(to coin an euphemism) this very beautiful but fragile planet of ours.
This we are doing by trying to buy more and more woodland every year to stop it falling into the wrong hands.if we achieve this we should be able to reduce the amount of tree's being needlessly cut down for firewood,especially when you see the amount of wood disapearing into landfills etc. recycling does not stop with just bottles and cans,but should be carried out across the board to help reduce consumerism.also all our land will be strictly no hunting and therefore be supplying a safe haven for our four legged and our winged friends when the hunt is at its full pace over the winter months.
we have been hitting out the local papers and doing petitions for public support and shall quite likely be appearing on national tv in the near future.
we are trying to apply sufficient pressure on local goverment to make them realise that this way of life should be supported and not dis-couraged,and that we have a strong public backing in our moral standing.with enough pressure the local mayor may stop the procedure before it carries on.
we have found information on a govermental document that states that "monsieur le maire has the power to stop any case at any time of its proceedings in the interests of the local commune.
we would be very pleased if you would support us on our environmental quest by signing our petition and by sharing the address with your contacts.
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/yourte56
also you can contact us on gerdweller@hotmail.co.uk
many thanks for taking time out of your busy scheduels for reading this and for caring.
love and light
jamie(fly) and rachel

ps. merci beaucoup thomas and please give our love to the family.

the future is bright,the future is green.

pps. please forgive any mistakes in this message,as i do not get to speak in english often and my vocabulary and grammer are disapearing fast.

Hi everyone, please have a look at this petition it is for a very worthy cause. http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/yourte56/?e
Thanks in anticipation
Sheena.

bonjour tout le monde

just to let you know how the yurt eviction is going here is a copy of my latest post on the expat sites in brittany.

atest news from the yurt eviction
itinerant child posted on 29/04/2009 at 13:53

bonjour tous,

just to keep you all up to date with how the eviction process is going on.

we had the police come round about 3 weeks ago to give us our verbal warning,which was basically going down the gendermerie and talking about the situation and putting it down on paper that we understand what the eviction charges are and except that now the peperwork will be sent to the precureur in lorient,so now we must wait for the date to come up for the tribunal.

they are saying that we are in breech of the rule 130.1 in the plu(plan local d'urbanisme). this says that all occupation on this terrain(even tho it is ours) is strictly forbidden as it compremets the protection,preservation,and creation of the woodland. we are contesting the relevence of this law in our particular case as we strongly believe as does the green party and the hulot fondation that our current presence on the land is actually au contraire and that we improving the protection,preservation and creation of our woodland.

the class of our land is class a (agricole) and also classe boisé a conserver ou a creer. we have solid proof that we have made a strong effort in both the departments of creation(tree planting to replace the dead) and conservation by cutting back the ivy,creepers and dead branches to protect the tree's?

we had a television crew down from paris on sunday to film us for their satelite channel "planete justice" which shall be shown on the 15th may on i believe channel 62planete justice,then shall be placed on their site planetejustice.fr about a week later,I shall post the url on here when they have informed me the exact date and times.

we have not been able to find a lawyer this side of bordeaux who specialises in not only administratif but droit publique also who accepts aide juridictionelle.we have spoken with a couple of lawyers who both agree that this situation has not been treeted legally on the part of the maires administration and that we should do our best to get legal representation,even though they were very impressed with my own efforts so far with studying up on french legislation and juristiction.

idealy we would like to be left alone for a few more months so that we can continue with our plan of protecting french forests.before this though we must buy a new larger yurt and a new trailor for moving with it.

for anyone who has not been following our case it is something like this.

rachel and I live in a mongolian yurt in woodland that we have bought to protect.our goal is to buy as many woodlands across france as we can afford in our lifetime so that we can spend a few months at a time in each woodland so that we can not only carry out what internal work that needs doing to help create a healthy woodland and eco-system,but also protect each woodland from ignorant people with big chainsaws that believe that re-planting is changing your machinary. we have seen vast amounts of woodlands and tree lines disapear here in brittany over the last few years and have also noticed it going on at alarming rates in other parts of the country.so with this making such an emotional impact on the pair of us we have taken it on as our life mission to do what we can to lessen the impact.

as this woodland in brec'h is our first buy we are needing to stay here just a bit longer until we get funds up to buy what we need then find our second woodland(probably in limousin).unfortunately the maire's efforts to get us evicted has somewhat delayed our plan as we have had to put time into trying to defend our cause,so basically if he had not sent us the letter of eviction back on the 24.12.2008 we would have most likely finished our plans and would have moved on to the next stage.

we are in current dialogue to try and win the right to have access to live on our own land in the future for a few months a year so that we can carry out any tidying up work that will need doing.

one good thing that has come from the tv people coming is that the maire lied blatantly to them when he completely contradicted something else he had printed in a local paper.the parisian journalists were quite happy with this and said it shall be used to get justice served.

basically when the eviction started the deputy maire told us it was because someone wanted to put up a garden shed and was refused by the maire,so they complained that they did not think it was right that we should have the right to live in our yurt in our woods when he has not the right to put up a shed,even tho his shed has foundations and is classed as a construction and our yurt is classed as an installation and does not require planning permission if it is less than 35m2. however when i mentioned this story to le telegramme and la gazette the maire responded publically by saying that this story was fabricated by us and they at the mairie do not occupy their time with titter tatter,and now the maire has told the tv journalists that it is because of the shed!!!!!!!!!!

rachel starts back at work this week and i shall start searching for a bit more so we can continue with our plan,as apart from a little more pressure on the maire which we shall be applting with the help of france3 and l'ouest france next week there is not much more that we can do until we get a date for the tribunal.

however we are still very positive within ourselves and have not let this small set back dis-suade us from our environmental aims.

we recently went on a tour of france to visit other yurt dwelling folk,some of which are under the cloud of eviction and some who are living their dreams without interference.it would appear that it very much depends upon the beliefs of your local maire and if he has an open mind and heart you can be left alone to live this style of life,we unfortunately have stumbled upon a hard man this time round.

I shall post the tv and internet dates and times for our public debut when i know when they are.

www.ipetitions.com/petition/yourte56
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love and light to all

jamie and rachel