A 40-hectare clearing, cut bare in the Chambaran forest between October and December 2014. Twelve years later, it remains naked. None of the 990 cottages promised ever saw the light, despite 37.4 million euros of public money spent on this Center Parcs project in Isère, abandoned in July 2020.
The site stayed frozen in time.
It all began in 2007. Decided that year, the Center Parcs project was delayed by the numerous appeals filed by the anti-Center Parcs association Pour Chambaran sans Center Parcs. The Pierre et Vacances group then imagined a leisure domain on the commune of Roybon, deep in the Chambaran forest. P&V planned to invest 387 million euros to build on 200 hectares a village of 990 cottages and a water- and leisure area, a project scaled like a small town at the forest’s edge.
- 37.4 million euros of public funds were invested in the infrastructure of a Center Parcs that was never realized in Isère.
- None of the 990 houses were built before the project was abandoned in July 2020.
- Thirteen years of legal battles and land occupation led to the expiration of the administrative authorizations required for the site.
A Construction Project Launched, Then Abruptly Frozen
The first earthmoving blows fell in the autumn of 2014. The clearing of the 40 hectares ended in December of the same year, giving way to an opening in the forest that nothing would fill. The infrastructures followed: roadways, roundabouts, foundations. 700 meters of concrete, in the town of Roybon, in Isère, lead nowhere, a construction-site backdrop left in a draft state for more than a decade. In 2026, these concreted tracks are still there, overgrown by vegetation.
Not a single house was ever raised from the ground.
Thirteen years of appeals that doomed the project
On the ground, another battle raged parallel to the courts. Access to the site was blocked by “zadists” occupying the land illegally since 2014, turning the plot into a zone to defend for years. In legal matters, proceedings followed relentlessly: environmental associations, fishing federations and local collectives filed appeals before administrative courts. On November 21, 2018, the Conseil d’État overturned the decision of the Lyon administrative court of appeal, which had canceled on December 16, 2016 the prefectural order of October 3, 2014 authorizing the construction.
The file then went back to the Lyon Court of Appeal, in a legal ping-pong that seemed endless. Pierre et Vacances held firm, carried the case to the Conseil d’État, persisted. But time worked against the project: after successive suspensive appeals, the administrative authorization essential for the site eventually expired.
The ax fell on July 8, 2020.
Pierre et Vacances announced it in a press release dated July 8, 2020: “For more than ten years, court proceedings challenging the administrative authorizations have impeded the realization of the project.” The group definitively abandoned the project in July 2020. Thirteen years of proceedings, a clearing left unstarted, and a clearing that nothing has occupied since. This marks the end of one of the most emblematic tourism development dossiers in France over the past decade.
Where Did the 37.4 Million Euros of Public Money Go
The breakdown of this sum was presented by the town to residents and local elected officials. The territorial authorities would have participated in the financing of the project to the tune of 37.4 million euros in the form of subsidies labeled “Center Parcs integration aids”: 19.4 million euros for water supply and sanitation works, including 7 by the Isère Departmental Council, 7 by the Bièvre Chambaran Community of communes and 5.4 by the Galaure Intercommunal Water Authority; 7 million euros by the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Regional Council for the insertion and professional training of low-skilled people, the development of renewable energies, support for structuring the wood sector and the promotion of local and regional tourism; 7 million euros by the Departmental Council for the acquisition in bare ownership of certain key facilities.
Roads, water networks, vocational training: this money funded facilities meant to accompany the arrival of hundreds of thousands of vacationers per year. It ended up irrigating an empty forest, with not a single cottage to justify the expenditure.
The land still largely belongs to Pierre et Vacances, which gave no precise indication about the future of these lands at the moment of the project’s abandonment. Six years after the July 2020 press release, the 40-hectare clearing remains visible from the road that cuts through the Chambaran forest, a silent reminder that a 387-million-euro project can collapse without a single stone being laid.
Sources: rse-magazine.com | mediascitoyens-diois.info | enviscope.com
