The town of Cilaos benefits from first class landed ownership on the west coast, right on the seafront in La Saline-les-Bains, a stone’s throw from the other Jacques Tessier holiday center in the town of St Denis.
The holiday center of the municipality of Cilaos is difficult to see. Abandoned, the site has not received visitors since 2001, when a municipal decree was issued following an inventory declaring the urgent need to close the site, as it no longer met safety standards.
2001 – 2022, almost nothing happened on a site that is still worth gold. Some attempts to bring it back to life have taken place. Note, for example, the 300,000 euros granted by the Reunion Family Allowance Fund to carry out renovation work on the building.
Subsequently, the Semader worked on the dossier to try to give the center a second life. Even there, this perspective has not led to anything concrete.
The state should take back its land
It must be said that the municipality of Cilaos faces a dilemma. On the one hand, as a rural city with low council revenues, its budget is mainly geared towards current and pressing issues. On the other hand, this land in La Saline-les-Bains belongs to the state. The Municipality occupies the premises as the holder of a fifty-year long lease. This lease began in 1977 and then ends in four years.
A few years ago the state had already begun to exercise its right of control by informing the municipality that it would take over the site if nothing had been done by then. All players are now certain that we are definitely taking the road with just a few wires from the deadline, in 2027.
For the record, in 1977, the municipality then chaired by Irénée Accot had taken possession of this very well located land even before signing the lease.
Today the presence of the local authority is realized only through the presence of a permanent municipal agent, custodian of a ghost site. The one exception perhaps, just over a year ago, the set had served as a filming location for the OPJ television series for some sequences.
