Housing Affordability Crisis Across the French Alps

The Loi Montagne’s most significant failure has been its inability to maintain housing affordability for local mountain residents throughout the French Alps region. The controlled development approach, while protecting landscapes, has created severe supply constraints that have priced out seasonal workers and permanent residents from their own communities.

Chamonix, one of the Alps’ most prestigious resort towns, has been forced to implement emergency measures, requiring 50% of new developments to include social housing (increased from 25%) and implementing anti-Airbnb regulations to address local housing shortages. Similar housing crises affect resort workers throughout the region, from Les Menuires to Tignes, where seasonal staff increasingly live in distant valleys and commute to work.

The situation has become so acute that some French Alps resorts struggle to maintain adequate staffing for essential services. Lift operators, ski instructors, restaurant workers, and cleaning staff often cannot afford to live in the communities where they work, threatening the long-term sustainability of the resort economy.

The Tourism Real Estate Restoration Disaster

The 2016 Mountain 2 Act’s provisions for “tourism real estate restoration” have proven to be a complete policy failure across the French Alps. Intended to encourage renovation of ageing 1960s-1980s ski resort buildings that characterise resorts like La Plagne, Les Arcs, Flaine, and Les Menuires, these provisions have been rendered economically impossible by the intersection of regulatory costs and market realities.

Demolition costs alone reach €5,000 per m² for major resort complexes, while new construction meeting current regulations costs €6,000-8,000 per m², creating total project costs of €12,000-15,000 per m². A notable example occurred at La Plagne Bellecote, where a major renovation project priced at €13,000+ per m² failed to find buyers and was withdrawn from the market. This demonstrates that regulatory compliance costs have pushed renovation pricing beyond what mid-tier French Alps resort markets will support.

The Brutalist-era developments that define resorts like Flaine (designed by Marcel Breuer) and Les Menuires present particular challenges for renovation due to their concrete construction, structural limitations, and the high costs of bringing these buildings up to modern energy efficiency standards. The result is continued deterioration of ageing ski resort infrastructure, with developers finding it more economical to completely demolish and rebuild rather than renovate existing structures.

Market Stratification and Exclusivity Across the French Alps

Rather than achieving its stated goal of “equality of income and living conditions,” the Loi Montagne has contributed to extreme market stratification throughout the French Alps. The controlled supply and regulatory compliance costs have created distinct market tiers:

Ultra-luxury resorts like Courchevel 1850 and Val d’Isère command €20,000-30,000+ per m² pricing, serving primarily wealthy international clientele. Mid-tier resorts, including La Plagne, Les Arcs, and Les Menuires, are caught in renovation cost traps, becoming increasingly unaffordable while their ageing infrastructure deteriorates. Lower-tier and family-oriented resorts struggle with infrastructure that cannot be economically updated to meet modern standards.

This stratification has effectively transformed much of the French Alps ski property market into a “playground for the ultra-wealthy” rather than the balanced mountain community development originally envisioned. Traditional mountain villages that evolved into ski resorts now price out the descendants of families who lived there for generations.

Policy Contradictions and Unintended Consequences

The 2016 amendments created fundamental policy contradictions where environmental protection requirements make heritage preservation economically impossible. This is particularly evident in purpose-built French Alps resorts from the 1960s-1980s ski boom, where regulations intended to improve energy efficiency and sustainability have created compliance costs that exceed the economic viability of renovation projects.

Energy efficiency requirements (RT 2020/RE 2020 standards) designed to address climate change concerns have made it virtually impossible to renovate the concrete apartment blocks that define resorts like Les Menuires and La Plagne. The Paris Climate Accord regulations and other environmental legislation create compliance costs that often exceed the underlying property values in mid-tier resorts.