It is obvious when you take the D18 departmental road when entering Marsas, a small town in the north of the Gironde: a family vault stands alone on a carefully maintained lawn, about 40 meters from the track. The new college built on the neighboring plot, and which has just welcomed its first students this start of the school year, is in the background. A somewhat unusual configuration which can be explained by the heirs’ desire to respect the wishes of their parents and grandparents. While the view is not the same and the college has replaced a forest area, which itself had succeeded the vines present ninety years ago at the time of the first burial, but the wishes of the deceased remain on this land remains topical.
“The college construction project has adapted to this family vault,” summarizes Anaïs Luquedey, director of colleges within the Gironde departmental council. The Marsas establishment, with a capacity of 800 college students, is part of the department’s college plan to cope with the demographic boom in students. When the town proposed to the department the land next to that where the cellar is located, the institution “contacted the family to offer to take charge of the relocation of the cellar which it did not wish for, it is his right, ”reports the director of colleges. Contacted by 20 minutes, the family, visibly shaken by this affair, did not want to speak.
Demographic pressure on the department
“A burial on private land creates a right of way for the benefit of your heirs (access to the tomb for contemplation), points out Maître Théo Clerc, lawyer specializing in funeral law. And, as long as there are heirs to avail themselves of this right of servitude, it remains in force. “If he reports” frequent problems “of this type, he specifies that in the light of his experience they intervene” mainly in private homes since people were buried in their garden or domain “.
The case of a neighborhood between a cellar and a college is more incongruous. “It is rare that these areas are urbanized to such an extent that it comes to building a hospital or a college, often it remains private property,” adds the lawyer. However, the department did not really have a choice, in a hurry to relieve the pressure on the two other colleges in the area, Peujard and Saint-Yzan-de-Soudiac. “As there were few opportunities of this area available immediately, we built the project around this enclave, respecting a regulatory perimeter. You cannot build a building less than 35 meters from the vault. “
“Very relative confidentiality”
The entire college project has been designed to preserve as much as possible the privacy of relatives who go to meditate in the vault. The entrance for the pupils is on one side of the building so as not to be turned towards the burial place, while the administrative car park “has been positioned to create a buffer zone between the area frequented by the pupils and the cellar”, specifies Anaïs Luquedey. A fence has been installed to separate this car park from the private land and trees will be planted this fall “to guarantee a certain privacy of the place,” she points out. A very relative confidentiality, because it is on the edge of the departmental road. “
“Today, a special authorization and even an agreement from the prefect are required for burial on private land,” explains Maître Théo Clerc. A priori, there will be no other burials in this vault of Marsas, witness to the passing of time and the transformation of this rural town.