by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

The hot spot for Montreal’s planners sits unspectacularly in a geographically isolated spot between the railway tracks and the cliff, west of Decarie in NDG. St-Raymond’s, a long-overlooked neighbourhood of 7,000, will lie in the shadow of the upcoming McGill superhospital, and so it’s the sudden target for countless new proposals, including rerouting roads, adding thousands of housing units and relocating industry.

One influential voice has no ties to the area or prior expertise in urban planning. Last fall, 20 new students in McGill’s Urban Planning graduate school blitzed the neighbourhood for months and came out with five different visions. Their suggestions have hit attentive ears among residents and planners.

One team, lead by Jennifer Bennett, discovered two neighbourhoods in the area. The east side of St-Raymond’s houses aging Italian owner-occupants, while the west houses short-term, largely newer immigrant renters. “We didn’t see much integration,” she says. “There seems to be a clear divide between the population that settled there in the 1940s and 50s and the more diverse community.”

Bennett’s gang would unite the area with land trusts. A regulatory body would buy homes when they go on the market and then offer them to renters already living in the area. “With the older generation dying off, houses will go on sale,” says Bennett. “This is a chance for renters to become a more permanent part of the neighbourhood.”

She’d also alter the laneways. “The alleys in that area aren’t used for much of anything—they’re covered in asphalt and they don’t lend themselves to vehicle traffic, and nobody is using them for parking,” she says. “Green alleyways could make really nice pedestrian passages that could be used for emergency vehicles when required as well.”

McGill student projects have invisibly influenced the city for two decades, according to their prof Lisa Bornstein. “Students have the luxury of being able to work at a different pace than a consultant or government official. These ones were required to look at the history of St-Raymond’s in more depth and uncovered more social dynamics and diversity and exclusion because they spent a lot of time talking to people there.”

City councillor Marcel Tremblay is listening. “For sure these students have influence here,” he says. “We’ve even got borough civil servants working with them.”

In recent years, McGill’s students have proposed closing off streets to traffic at the Jean-Talon Market and introducing light rail to the East End, both of which were subsequently adopted.

The students remain one of many voices in the collective brainstorming around St-Raymond’s. Other players include an inter-neighbourhood committee to deal with the superhospital impact, a grassroots citizens group opposing traffic changes to the area, and borough urban planners are also currently working on a special plan for the area.

The borough community economic development corporation is also stepping up to offer cash for local investment. “Our job is to try to find concrete projects,” says president Jason Prince, who would like to see the industry on St-Jacques relocated near Cavendish to allow housing along the cliff. “It’s not an urban planning exercise. St-Raymond’s is historically a little village. It can be a little village again.”