Flat-roofed contemporary villa overlooking the bay of Golfe-Juan, a terrace with sun loungers, a pool and lawn, the sea on the horizon

HarmonieGolfe-JuanBuilt by Midi Mas

Building plots on the French Riviera · From Cannes to the gates of Monaco

Before you buy a plot on the French Riviera, find out which villa it will allow you to build.

A listing shows a surface area, a view, sometimes a permit. It rarely tells you what you will see from your living room, or what the rules, which differ from one town to the next, will let you build. From Mandelieu-la-Napoule to the gates of Monaco, Midi Mas helps you find your plot and see it through a builder’s eye: we have been designing and building villas since 1993.

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More than 400 completed villas

Our building sites are open to visitors: villas at every stage of construction, from structural work to finishes.

What surface area does not tell you

Three plots of around 1,000 m2. One villa twice the size of another.

These three plots are among those we have presented, in Èze, Beaulieu-sur-Mer and Mougins. Each measures around 1,000 m2, and each has been granted a building permit. Yet here is what was authorised on each one:

  • Plot in Èze 1,000 m2 Permit granted A 360 m2 villa

    With a pool.

  • Plot in Beaulieu-sur-Mer 1,000 m2 Permit granted A 211 m2 villa

    With a pool and garage.

  • Plot in Mougins 1,050 m2 Permit granted A 178 m2 villa

    With a pool.

Based on the details of the plots presented by Midi Mas in 2024 and 2025. Bars: villa floor area, to the same scale.

The difference has nothing to do with surface area. It comes from the shape of the plot, its slope, its access, the planning rules that apply to it, and the project chosen for it: a permit fixes one project, not necessarily everything the plot allows. All of this can be read on site and on the plans, provided you know where to look.

You do not buy a plot by the square metre. You buy it for the house it allows.

The French Riviera, town by town

One coastline, with rules that change from one town to the next.

Between the Esterel and the gates of Monaco lie villa neighbourhoods by the sea, hills of pines and olive trees, hilltop villages and corniche roads. From one town to the next, sometimes from one neighbourhood to the next, the zoning plan changes, and with it the villa a plot allows. For each town, we have gathered what you need to know before you buy: choose your area.

From Mandelieu-la-Napoule to Antibes

Gulfs, bays and the hills around Cannes

The Gulf of La Napoule, the Bay of Cannes, the bay of Golfe-Juan, then Cap d’Antibes; set back from the shore, the hills of Mougins and Mouans-Sartoux.

From Grasse to Vence

The hill country

Dry-stone terraces (restanques), olive trees and hilltop villages. The sea is often only a distant line here, visible from a few high points: the landscape reads first as hills.

From Biot to Saint-Laurent-du-Var

Around the Baie des Anges

Between Antibes and Nice, towns shared between the coast and the first hills, on either side of the Loup, as far as the Var.

From Nice to the gates of Monaco

Corniches and capes

The bay of Villefranche, Cap Ferrat, the corniche roads and their hilltop villages: plots often on a slope, facing the sea.

The plots we present

Building plots on the French Riviera, from Mandelieu-la-Napoule to the gates of Monaco.

Each one is described by what it allows, not just by what it measures. Several already have a building permit (permis de construire). Price and availability, confirmed with the seller, and the status of the permit: we give you all of this in our very first conversation, plot by plot.

From Mandelieu-la-Napoule to Golfe-Juan

11 plots

From the hills of Valbonne to Vence

6 plots

From Nice to the gates of Monaco

8 plots

Midi Mas presents these plots with a view to designing and building your villa on them. The plot details were published in late 2024 and updated in early 2025: since then, some plots may have found a buyer, some permits may have expired, and the planning rules of several towns have changed (in Mougins, for example, the local zoning plan, or PLU, was amended in December 2025). We confirm everything, plot by plot, in our first conversation.

None quite right? Show us the plots you spot, anywhere from Mandelieu-la-Napoule to the gates of Monaco: we look at them with you, through a builder’s eye, before you decide to buy. No plot yet? Midi Mas helps you find yours.

Visit plots with us
Cross-section of a sloping plot From the highest point of the plot, the eye clears everything and reaches the sea. At the level of the future living room, further down, it runs into the neighbour’s house. The required setback fixes where the house stands, and the slope calls for a retaining structure. 1 2 3 4 5
  1. 1On the day of the visit, from the highest point: the sea.
  2. 2From the living room, a few metres lower: the neighbour’s roof.
  3. 3The setback required by the planning regulations, which decides where the house can stand.
  4. 4The retaining structure the slope calls for.
  5. 5What the neighbour is still entitled to build.
Illustrative diagram: on a sloping plot, a drop of a few metres is enough to change a view.

What a listing does not show

You look at the view. We look at where you will see it from.

A plot on the French Riviera, one Saturday morning. The gate opens onto dry-stone terraces (restanques) planted with olive trees, a few pines and, in the distance, a line of sea. It is what the listing promised, and it is true.

You do what everyone does: you climb to the top of the plot, where the view is finest, and you are already picturing the terrace right where you stand.

But your living room will not be there. It will be lower down, or further back: wherever the slope, the setbacks required by the planning regulations and access for construction machinery allow it to sit. That day, you will no longer be standing on a plot. You will be sitting in your own home. That is where the plot will have to keep its promises.

We, for our part, stay down below for a while. We look at where the construction machinery will come in, where the hill’s shadow will fall on a December afternoon, what the zone’s regulations allow here, in height as well as ground coverage, and what the neighbour could build tomorrow between you and the sea. Then we climb back up, and ask the only question that counts: from your living room, what will you see?

Sometimes the answer confirms the plot you fell for. Sometimes it turns your heart towards another, less photogenic in its listing but better able to carry the house you want to live in. Either way, you decide with full knowledge of the facts.

Everyone looks at a plot through the lens of their own trade. Ours is building a villa on it.

The estate agent knows the market, the surveyor measures the plot, the notary (notaire) secures the sale, the architect draws: each has a role. But it is by building that you learn what a slope, an access road or the ground itself really demands of a house. Since 1993, we have done both: design, then build. And that eye matters before you sign: unlike buying a house, buying a building plot in principle gives you no cooling-off period, except in a subdivision that requires a development permit (permis d’aménager).

A builder’s eye

Nine questions we ask of every plot before we draw a villa on it.

Here is what we examine, on site and on the plans. Keep this list: it will serve you on every plot you visit, with or without us.

How many square metres of footprint does this plot allow?

It is the figure listings rarely give, and it changes from one town to the next, sometimes from one neighbourhood to the next. In the villa neighbourhoods of Antibes, ground coverage is limited to 25, 20 or 15% of the plot depending on the sector; in Mougins, to 10, 15 or 20%; in Vence, in sector UFc1, it drops to 10%: 200 m2 of footprint on 2,000 m2. On the heights of Cannes, as in most neighbourhoods of Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, a bare plot in principle takes no new villa.

What will you see from the living room?

Judge the view from the level you will live on, not from the highest point of the plot. It depends on the permitted height, often 7 metres to the eaves in villa neighbourhoods, in Mandelieu-la-Napoule, Vence or Èze for example. On a slope, a frontal height limit (hauteur frontale), 8.5 metres in Èze, 9 in Cap-d’Ail, often sets the number of levels. In Nice as in Cap-d’Ail, “view corridors” (dégagements de vue) also protect certain views. Then there are the neighbours, and what they are still allowed to build.

Is the villa you have in mind allowed there?

Rules on appearance also shape your house, and they are not the same everywhere. In Cannes, roofs are in principle covered with round, brick-red tiles; in Valbonne, pitched roofs take channel tiles (tuiles canal); in Vence, in zone UF, contemporary architecture is accepted, flat roof terraces included, provided it is in keeping with the surrounding buildings. Much of the coastline is a listed site (site inscrit), where the state heritage architect (Architecte des Bâtiments de France) is consulted; much of Cap Ferrat is even a protected site (site classé), where any change to the appearance of the land requires special authorisation. Better to know this before you fall in love with an image.

Is the plot in a red zone?

Almost every town in our area is covered by one or more risk prevention plans: wildfire, ground movement, flooding. In a red zone, new buildings are in principle prohibited; in a blue zone, they are allowed under conditions, such as being close to a standard firefighting water point or a defended road. Two neighbouring plots can fall into different zones: this is checked plot by plot. And no plan does not mean no risk: in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, on the low-lying coast, a coastal flooding map is used when permit applications are examined.

What does the ground tell you?

On the Géorisques map, much of the area is exposed to clay shrink-swell, at a medium or high level. In those zones, the seller of a building plot must give you a preliminary geotechnical study (étude géotechnique préalable): it describes the site, not your house. On slopes, a geological and geotechnical study is often required before any project: in the blue landslide zone in Nice, or on the hill slopes mapped by the prefect in Mandelieu-la-Napoule, where severe weather in late 2019 triggered more than 80 landslides.

What will the slope cost?

A slope offers levels, terraces, often the view. It also calls for retaining walls, which each town regulates in its own way: in villa neighbourhoods, a retaining wall may be no higher than 1.50 metres in Cannes, 2 metres in Mandelieu-la-Napoule, Antibes, Valbonne or Grasse, and 3 metres in Nice, Vence or Cap-d’Ail, where successive walls are separated by planted terraces at least 1.50 metres wide. The landscape has its rules too: in Valbonne, olive trees are not felled, they are transplanted.

How will the machinery get in?

A lane that is charming by car can become a real issue for construction machinery. In the blue zones of the wildfire plans, in Nice, Vence or Mandelieu-la-Napoule, a new access road must in principle offer a carriageway at least 3 metres wide, with a gradient of less than 15%. Rainwater is most often managed on the plot: 100 litres of retention per square metre of sealed surface in Cannes or Grasse, 120 in Valbonne. Utility connections and wastewater treatment are checked before you buy.

Has the permit been granted, or is it beyond challenge?

A third party can challenge a permit in court for two months from the first day it is continuously displayed on the plot; without proper display, that period does not start to run. The authority that issued it can also withdraw it within three months if it is unlawful. A permit has a period of validity, and it can be transferred to the buyer only on application to the town hall, with the agreement of its holder. The conditions that protect you are written into the preliminary contract (avant-contrat), with your notary (notaire).

Does the sea set rules too?

Coastal towns are subject to the Coastal Law (loi Littoral), as detailed in the Alpes-Maritimes regional planning directive (directive territoriale d’aménagement). Outside built-up areas, in principle nothing is built within 100 metres of the shore. A property bordering the public maritime domain (domaine public maritime) is in principle subject to a pedestrian right of way along the coast, 3 metres wide. And near the shore, exposure to coastal flooding is checked plot by plot.

None of these questions is a reason to give up on a plot. A slope can offer a view that flat land never will; an existing permit is a valuable starting point. But every one of these questions will come up one day.

Before you sign, it is a question, and it has an answer. Afterwards, it is a constraint.

Rules cited as examples: the local zoning plans (PLU) of Mandelieu-la-Napoule, Cannes, Mougins, Grasse, Valbonne and Antibes, the metropolitan local zoning plan (PLUm) of the Métropole Nice Côte d’Azur (Nice, Vence, Èze, Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, Cap-d’Ail), the risk prevention plans approved by the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes, the State’s notices (porter à connaissance), listed and protected sites, the Alpes-Maritimes regional planning directive, Géorisques, the Planning Code (code de l’urbanisme), the Construction and Housing Code (code de la construction et de l’habitation). Detailed versions and references are on each town’s page. The rules vary from one zone to another: every plot has to be checked.

These questions are not settled by reading a listing. They are settled on site, plans in hand. That is exactly what we do during a visit.

Visit plots with us

From plot to villa

What a plot becomes, when you know how to read it.

A slope, a view, an orientation: every plot sets its own conditions. In these villas, the house began with the plot. What these photos no longer show (earthworks, retaining structures, the structural frame), you will see on our building sites, which we open to visitors at every stage of construction.

  • Villa with tiled roofs, a large timber terrace and a pool, set against stone terrace walls, facing the hills and mountains.

    Soléa

    Roquefort-les-Pins

    The plotStone terraces (restanques), facing the mountains.

    The answerThe villa backs onto the stone walls; the terrace and pool open onto the landscape.

  • Contemporary hillside villa: glazed openings over two floors, stone cladding, a glass-edged terrace and a curved infinity pool above the greenery.

    Sillage

    The plotA slope facing the landscape.

    The answerThe terrace and pool reach out towards the view, above the lower level.

  • Single-storey villa with stone pillars, full-height glazing and an infinity pool facing the hills.

    Rivage

    Roquefort-les-Pins

    The plotA distant view to capture.

    The answerOn a single level, the entrance, the living room, the terrace and the pool line up with the landscape: your eye travels through the house before your feet do.

Photographs of villas built by Midi Mas.

Press

Midi Mas, une signature haute couture

Article in the magazine Perspective
Entrance façade of a white contemporary villa with a large black-framed glazed wall, pale stone cladding and wide roof overhangs.
Sillage, Vallauris: glazed wall, stone cladding and wide roof overhangs.

The plot visit

Let’s visit the plots that interest you, together. Before you sign, you will know which villa each one allows you to build.

Don’t take our word for it. Come and look, with us, on site.

  1. A first conversationYou tell us what you are looking for and the life you want to live in this house. We select the plots that could fit, and confirm their availability.
  2. Visiting the plotsOn each plot, we look with you at what the listing does not say: where the living room would sit, the path of the sun, the slope and what it would call for, the access, the neighbours, the planning rules.
  3. Our building sites, at every stageWe take you to see villas under construction, from structural work to finishes: what a real plot demands of a real house, and how we respond. You judge our work on the evidence, including what a finished villa no longer shows.

What you take away

  • a clear reading of every plot you visit;
  • the questions to ask of any plot;
  • a precise idea of the house that could stand there.

Have you spotted a plot elsewhere in our area? Mention it in the form: from our very first conversation, we will work out together how to look at it with the same eye before you decide to buy.

A plot is chosen in a few weeks. Your house will stand on it for decades.

Visit plots with us

Before you write to us

Who this visit will be useful to, and who less so.

It will probably be useful to you if

  • you are looking for a plot on which to have your villa built, from 200 to 1,200 m2, between Mandelieu-la-Napoule and the gates of Monaco;
  • you have spotted a plot, or not yet: either way, now is the right time;
  • you would rather understand a plot before buying it than after;
  • you care as much about the quality of construction as about the location.

It will probably be less useful to you if

  • you are looking for a plot to invest in or resell, with no plan to build a house;
  • you want a house you can move into straight away: buying an existing villa will no doubt meet that need better;
  • you are searching outside our area.

Does the first list sound like you? What happens next is simple.

Visit plots with us

Frequently asked questions

The questions to ask before you buy a plot.

Is your question not listed here? Keep it for our first conversation: we will answer it in person.

Are the plots presented here still available?

They were presented in 2024 and 2025, and some may have found a buyer since. Tell us what you are looking for: we will tell you which remain available and, with the seller’s agreement, arrange a visit to those that suit your project.

Why are prices not shown on this page?

Because a published price ages quickly: these details date from 2024 and 2025, and a price may have been revised since. In our very first conversation, before any visit, we give you the current price of each plot that interests you, with its availability and what it allows you to build. That is how you really compare prices: two plots at the same price can carry two villas with nothing in common.

If a permit has already been granted, do I have to build the house it describes?

No. A permit proves that a project was judged compliant with the planning rules on this plot: that is valuable information. But it was drawn for someone other than you. If it matches the house you want to live in, it can be transferred to you with its holder’s agreement, as long as it is valid: you then avoid having a new application processed. If not, it makes way for a new application for the villa you really want. We go through this with you, plot by plot.

I don’t have a plot yet. Is it too early to contact you?

No, it is actually the best time. You read a plot better when you already know how you want to live on it, and you avoid buying a plot that will not allow the house you imagined. We can help you choose the right plot.

I have spotted a plot that is not listed here. Can you look at it with me?

If it is within our area and you are thinking of having your villa built on it, we can advise you before you decide to buy, with a technical analysis of the plot if needed. Name its town in the form: we will discuss it in our very first conversation.

What happens after the visit?

You leave with a precise reading of the plots you visited: what each one allows, what it demands, the house it could carry. If one of them convinces you and our way of working suits you, we move on to designing your villa. If not, you will look at the next plots with a different eye.

I don’t live in the area. How does the visit work?

The first conversation takes place remotely: together, we shortlist the plots worth the journey, with their price and availability. The visit is then arranged for a date that fits your next stay on the French Riviera, and can include our current building sites. What matters to us is the town where the plot is, not where you live. Let us know your preferred language, too.

What comes next

The best time to look at a plot with a builder is before you buy it.

The first conversation is there to prepare your visit: understanding what you are looking for, selecting the plots that meet it, confirming their availability. To make it useful, have in mind:

  • the area that appeals to you, by the sea or in the hills, or already a specific town;
  • the plot you have spotted, if any, and the date you have in mind for the preliminary sale contract (compromis de vente);
  • how you would like to live there, in a few words;
  • a timescale, even a rough one.

The form guides you through the rest, one question at a time.

Visit plots with Midi Mas

A few questions, one at a time. Under two minutes.

Start

No plot yet? Just say so: we will help you recognise the right one.

Your answers are used to prepare our first conversation. How they are processed is described in our privacy policy.