November 13th, 2009
IPAM sets the stage for more inclusive long-term planning
By Alanah Heffez // 3 Comments
Just when Montreal was in need of a superhero, the Institut de Politiques Alternatives de Montreal enters the scene with an all-star team to tackle urban issues.
At the helm are three well-known names: Phyllis Lambert, Founding Director of the Canadian Centre for Architecture, Dinu Bumbaru, Policy Director of Héritage Montréal, and Dimitri Roussopoulos, founder of the Montréal Urban Ecology Centre.
“Our assumption is that there’s a lot of value in Montrealness” said Dinu Bumbaru in a conversation earlier this week. “Montreal is a city which has an urban space which is still characterized by a fairly substantial mixity of use, of social demographics and so on.” While this city's diversity this has often been credited for inspiring our vibrant arts scene, Bumbaru says it also plays out in the way we act upon our city.
Our Montrealness is expressed through the way our civil society is organised: the city counts nearly 5000 different community organizations and 30 neighbourhood round-tables which bring together merchants, community organizations and elected officials, plus a number of academic researchers that focus on urban issues.
Evidently we’re not short of people with ideas and expertise to make Montreal a better place. What is lacking is, perhaps, space to exchange and synthesize ideas, a unified voice, and a podium from which to speak. Enter IPAM.
“This is not a cookie-cutter initiative,” Bumbaru says, “Its is rooted in the way that Montreal is organised.”
IPAM’ first action was to fire off a letter to Mayor Tremblay requesting that he organize a summit in spring 2010 where the civil society can come together to help to establish the guidelines for the administration’s new mandate.
“Decision-making in a city is not the monopoly of elected officials,” Bumbaru points out.
Such a summit would be particularly pertinent as Montreal's urban plan is up for review this year.
“In terms of master planning and urbanism, Montreal has lived through a number of setbacks in the last few years,” Bumbaru says. He describes a city’s master plan as the highest level of pact between a city and its citizens.
But this pact has not been upheld: projects that profoundly change the urban landscape have received only cursory consultation in the final stages, and the outcome of public consultation largely ignored.
Phyllis Lambert, who will act as President of IPAM, stresses that rather than critiquing individual projects, IPAM will be think tank focused on developing policy and a long-term vision for the city.
“We want to reinforce citizen participation,” Lambert says. She sees the urban plan, the city's 375th anniversary (in 2017), and Montreal 2025 as concrete long-term projects which could benefit from a spin in the think-tank.
But when I spoke to Phyllis Lambert and Dinu Bumbaru this week, a lot of the details had yet to be worked out, including how interested folks like us - and those 5000 community organisations - can get involved.
Disjointed community initiatives and lack of coherence within city-wide planning are nothing new. Perhaps our unique brand of Montreal mixity can as divisive as it can be inspiring.
Will this team be able to give weight to widespread calls for more meaningful public consultation and a broader scope for urban planning?
One thing is for sure: IPAM's founders expect Mr Tremblay to embark on their proposal for a summit this spring. Which is certainly more than your average Joe could count on.
I'll will make sure to update the blog as IPAM takes a more concrete shape.
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Excellent thing! It took 8 years of Tremblay for the need to become absurdly obvious.
Well, I don't know Bumbaru personally, and perhaps he is not a team player. But he almost always has been right in terms of Montréal's architecture and development, and the ghastly errors made (see Bell Centre below on this blog).
In any case, this is an excellent initiative, including the opportunity for community association inputs. Let's hope it can achieve something.
Bumbaru is not interrested in what people think; he only wants us to know what HE thinks. And of course, he's totaly sure to be right all the time about everything concerning Montreal' architecture and development. I'm tired of its righteousness.
Lambert is much more open minded and imaginative in her vision of Montreal's future.
Comment by Martin Girard
November 13, 2009 | 9:54 pm