Hameaux légers is the story of a meeting. After a gap year, Sevak Kulinkian and Xavier Gisserot met, in a village in southern Ardèche, a mayor and two of his constituents who are fighting against the over-presence of second homes in their municipality, which is simultaneously experiencing depopulation and an aging population.
On a communal plot, they plan to create a new type of small housing development with ecological houses in a participatory, affordable, non-speculative model to attract young families to live there year-round by enabling them to become homeowners.
The plan resonates with the two travelers who had a similar idea. They take the reins of the initiative and give it a national scope.
“Our mission is to help solve the housing crisis in territories and populations that we consider forgotten by the state and social landlords, namely rural areas or small municipalities with fewer than 5,000 inhabitants, which represents about 30,000 municipalities in France and over 20 million inhabitants,” explains Sevak Kulinkian.
These areas have welcomed nearly 2 million workers in the last 5 years and will continue to host more families in the coming years.
In a context of necessary ecological transition and a crisis of social ties, Hameaux légers presents itself as a housing solution that takes into account the needs for access to housing for people, as well as the respect for nature and the vitality of neglected territories.
Specifically, a light hamlet is a neighborhood of participatory housing in a rural town consisting of 5 to 15 individual houses. It is also an ecological neighborhood, both in design and in the way it avoids paving the ground, destroying wildlife and flora, or creating thermally efficient homes.
It also offers more affordable homeownership, as well as a non-speculative living environment. Residents of light hamlets can only use their individual homes as their primary residence and cannot make profits upon resale. The house belongs to them, but not the land.
Another way of living, sustainably and in solidarity, that has spread throughout France. Since its creation in 2017, Hameaux légers has already set up hundreds of projects, with just as many underway across the country.
