At the end of March, the Office de consultation publique de Montréal (OCPM) plans to release it’s report and recommendations from the Quartier Bonaventure consultation meetings in January. During this public consultation process, citizens voiced concern over the proposal to build a bus corridor on Rue Dalhousie in Griffintown.
In this video I speak with Sami Hakim, an engineer and Griffintown property owner, as well as David Hanna, an urban planning professor at UQAM, who has studied this project extensively.
I contacted the Société du Havre de Montréal (SHM) and requested an interview with Isabelle Hudon, but I received a response from Andre Bouthillier saying: “Unfortunately, she will wait the Office de consultation publique de Montréal report before giving other interviews.” Quite a change since Hudon spoke freely to media during the consultation process. But I hope to speak with her or someone at the SHM after the report is released. To be continued…
Breaking News: The three new buildings proposed by Société Dévelopment Angus on Boulevard Saint-Laurent will be smaller and longer in coming than originally planned, Le Devoir reported yesterday.
2-22 Sainte-Catherine, the anchor building for arts organizations in the Quartier des Spectacles has shrunk from a 12-story flashy glass-fronted design, to a 5-story brick structure which promises to be more in harmony with the local architecture. Unsurprisingly, the artists for whom this project was conceived would not have been able to afford space in the building. Since this redesign actually fits within the area’s urban plan, no further public consultations will be required.
The controversial Quadrilatère Saint-Laurent has also seen its budget cut by more than half. I have heard rumors from 2 sources that Hydro Quebec has withdrawn from the project. However in an interview with Le Devoir, SDA president Christian Yaccarini said that Hydro Quebec will remain the main tenant in the shrunken Quadrilatère. Rather, he blames Café Cleopatra for retarding the project by refusing to leave the location. The pared-back design will not surpass the Monument National.
The last, and probably best of the SDA’s developments, a cultural centre on the empty lot around metro Saint-Laurent station, is also on hold for “at least a year” (read: indefinitely). The developer has only able to find tenants for a quarter of the space. Once again, few cultural groups are able shell out for the brand new digs, despite municipal subsidies.
Lessons learned?
For people who were involved in the public consultation process, the temptation is to shout out a great big “I told you so.” Architect and author Louis Rastelli, who is involved with the Save the Main recently wrote to me:
“In short, everything everyone warned about these 3 projects has come to pass — rushed forward too soon without confirmed tenants, Hydro not likely willing to wait forever, no plan B from the developer, premature expropriation, questionable idea of putting offices in a concert district etc.”
But money talks and, perhaps ironically, lack of money has ground this project to a halt after citizen opposition was categorically ignored.
There is one contradiction that I hope does not go unnoticed here: during public consultations, we were told that the only way that these projects could be financially viable was through renting many stories of office space. Now, the cash-strapped developer is cutting back the project to something that is actually cohesive with the urban plan in terms of building height. Why was this kind of design initially portrayed as impossible when it is, in fact, not only possible but apparently cheaper? (Keeping in mind that SDA purports to be a non-profit organization).
Unless, of course, this pared-back version of the project actually is impossible, is nothing but a smoke screen to cover a a more complete retreat. Remember when, barely over a year ago, Projet Griffintown’s finances went down the tubes and developer Devimco promised a pared-back project? And then we never heard from them again? A recent writeup in Métro Montréal concludes the project is “practically dead”
We can say good riddance to Projet Griffintown because the developer actually owned very little of the property that they hoped to build upon. That’s not the case with the SDA on the Lower Main: over the past year, they snapped up all the properties they could and crushed the little life that was left on the block below Sainte-Catherine. You can bet that, with the exception of Café Cleopatra and perhaps the Montreal Pool room who have not yet finalized the sale of their property, the strip will be neglected for years to come as this gets sorted out, or doesn’t.
Now, more than ever before, it is time to get a bit more creative and “Save the Main.”
Have we finally learned that confiding a neighbourhood’s revitalization to a single developer (and without even a public bidding process) is too great a risk?
I know that, when they rubberstamp projects of this scale, city officials are not trying to win my vote. Perhaps they are seeking the support from business people, or catering to an older generation wistful for the golden years of bulldoze-and-build-it-better, Expo-style development.
If nothing else, I hope the City be burned enough to learn that bending over backwards to push through a high-profile project is, politically speaking, only a good move if you can actually deliver.
As I mentioned in my post last week about the 2010 City of Montreal budget, one of the new measures it includes is a special tax on downtown parking spaces. Two zones of taxation are proposed. Parking lots in central neighbourhoods (defined by Atwater on the west, Papineau on the east, and des Pins on the north) will be taxed at a lower rate. Parking lots in the central business district will be taxed at a higher rate. In both cases exterior surface parking will be billed at a higher rate than indoor parking.
The charges will range from $19.80 per square metre for a surface lot in the central business district to $4.95 per square metre for an indoor lot farther out. The revenue generated from this tax will be earmarked for improving public transit, and the city expects it to make around $20 million dollars per year.
This is a measure long overdue. As the above map shows, surface parking lots take up a significant portion of the downtown area. While the situation in Montreal is not nearly as bad as in some of the Canadian Prairies cities or the US Sunbelt cities, surface parking is nevertheless very present.
The OPCM has already begun public consultations for the Quartier Bonaventure which will drastically overhaul the no-man’s land between Griffintown and the Quartier des Recollets (just west of Old Montreal). What I originally thought of away as a simple remake of the highway actually turns out to be an entire neighbourhood with residential and commercial towers, a public square, and new green spaces near the canal. At first glance I’d say it’s a better spot than most for those ubiquitous high rises.
Being a fan of re-inhabiting unused nooks and crannies in the city, I quite like the plan for “Renewed use of the Canadian National rail viaduct”
In order to reinsert the rail viaduct into the urban fabric of the faubourgs, it is proposed to reopen its fenestration, reclaim the ground-level floor space for commercial use, and make more safe and comfortable the many east-west passageways. That part of the rail viaduct between Ottawa and William streets, facing the public place, could house, most usefully, the necessary facilities for the users of public transportation. (From the city of Montreal’s Quariter Bonaventure Synthesis document PDF).
So far the main controversy is over the Dalhousie bus corridor which would funnel buses from the South Shore through the neighbourhood (there are currently about 350 of those buses a day and they have to take a more circuitous route through the old streets).
Rendering of the Dalhousie bus corridor, with the CN rail vaiduct with fenestration re-done and new commercial spaces.
At the outset, I’m a bit concerned that this neighbourhood is being planned independently from the Windsor-Station-train-tracks-over-St-Antoine idea that has been floating around recently. It would be a shame to invest so much transforming the Bonaventure autoroute into an urban boulevard and integrating the CN viaduct into the urban fabric, only to create a brand new barrier a few blocks away.
I don’t know enough about it to say much at this point. For those interested in learning more, the OCPM is holding an information session tonight (Nov 26) at 7pm at the Cathédrale Marie-Reine-du-Monde, 1110 rue mansfield. Another information session will be held December 1st at 7pm, and memoirs and comments can be presented January 12, 2010.
Surface parking lots in downtown Montreal.
