The siege of
Griffintown

>> As over a billion dollars worth of new
construction is poised to flood the
down-at-heels neighbourhood,
residents fight to stem the tide
and have their voices heard

by PATRICK LEJTENYI

Gobeil and his wife, Judith Bauer, bought the 150-year-old building at Murray and Ottawa four years ago, after they were evicted from their previous home and, he says, haven’t stopped putting money into it since. They live a stone’s throw from Leo Leonard’s Horse Palace, the legendary last working urban stable in North America, and on the edge of the proposed development. One tower would go up next door, says Gobeil, and while his home is assured safety from developers, Griffintown’s burgeoning sense of community is not.

In response to the development, the pair—along with an estimated 100 others—created the Committee for the Sustainable Redevelopment of Griffintown, with an online petition and a 44-page memorandum/manifesto. In it, they decry the one-million square feet of commercial space proposed, describing it as a new Rockland Centre squatting in one of the city’s oldest quarters. They say green spaces, including a popular dog run, will disappear, traffic—already terrible at rush hour—will worsen, thanks to thousands of new parking spots, and, by putting all of its development eggs in Devimco’s one basket, should the project fail, economic catastrophe for the city and the Southwest borough are real possibilities.

BOOM AT THE BASSIN: Possible Devimco plans

“Griffintown needs redevelopment,” Gobeil tells the Mirror, a fact no one familiar with the area would disagree with. But he and others are asking what kind of redevelopment does it need, and is the Devimco plan the right one?

“On the face of it, the idea of redeveloping the area is a good one, because the neighbourhood needs it,” says CSR Griffintown member AJ Kandy, “but what the proposal does is erase a big chunk of the historical street grid. We want a traditional neighbourhood development.”

There are relatively few homeowners in Griffintown, and although art galleries, photo studios and the Friendship Cove venue on Murray add a touch of culture, it’s still a neighbourhood of low-rise warehouses, general shabbiness and mostly non-existent nightlife. The Devimco plan, the developers promise, would change all that (although no one would return the Mirror’s repeated phone calls for an interview by press time)—even if it evicts the people on Griffintown’s cultural forefront.

Culture as commodity

Jack Dylan, a Friendship Cove-based visual artist, says the area’s quiet appealed to him and the friends who have settled there. “The beauty of Griffintown is its isolation,” he writes in an e-mail from China, where he’s travelling. “I relish the industrial beauty of Griffintown, especially its older parts. It has a quiet sadness to it, and is a very good walking companion…. In the winter, when the snow falls on Griffintown at night, and it’s quiet, that’s when it’s at its best.”

Friendship Cove is likely doomed, he says, and Dylan says with it will go an increasingly rare commodity in Montreal these days: space for independent artists. “Some of these spaces may not be the most attractive on the outside, nor appear to contain much, but this is where the albums are being recorded, art is being produced and discussions are being had.”

The new plan would introduce some culture, says Gobeil, but, “Everything would involve a transaction. Nothing would be free.” A new cinema is to be built, and a culture and heritage centre will go up near the Bonaventure and canal’s intersection. But Gobeil and Bauer both worry that the street life will focus on the anticipated boutiques and restaurants rather than any sense of community. “There won’t be any place for a father to throw a ball to his son,” he says. Or to take him to school or karate or swimming lessons, since no schools or community centres are planned.

The development has “no physical connection to the street,” says Kandy. “It won’t create a lively neighbourhood. Look at a street like Bernard [in Mile-End]. There’s a wonderful retail/residential mix, it doesn’t feel overcrowded, it has a vibrant street life—that should be the norm, the model we should be looking at.”

Kandy and many others say the project’s sheer scale is incongruous with the city’s character. He picks the Plateau as a good example of tasteful density, and urges the city and developer to scale the project down. But he, and many others, point to the nearby Jardins Windsor, the tower complex astride St-Jacques and de la Montagne, where the new Expos stadium was proposed, as an example of what they fear.

Tram in, tram out

The development plan does have its supporters, among them Claude Provencher, of Provencher Roy architectural firm, which designed the Cité des multimédias in Griffintown’s rump east of the Bonaventure and the Quartier Internationale around Square Victoria, and the Regroupement économique et social du Sud-Ouest (RÉSO), the Southwest borough’s community economic development corporation, which anticipates Devimco’s estimated 4,330 jobs created during the construction phase. And Plateau councillor Richard Bergeron, head of Projet Montréal, the sustainability-focused municipal party.

Bergeron tells the Mirror he doesn’t mind condo towers, as long as the amenities necessary surround them. Which, he points out, they don’t, but he doesn’t blame Devimco.

“The promoters did their job very well,” he says. “But the city didn’t verify it, and we’re finding a lot of questions that had never been asked. For instance, if we really do want Griffintown to be family-friendly, then where are the schools? Now, today, we have to ask these questions, after the project is done.”

Bergeron says the diversity Devimco’s plan would add to Montreal architecture is a bonus, something that differentiates North American from European cities, and adds its own kind of vitality. And as a long-time advocate of a city-wide tramway system, he was initially thrilled at the proposal of building one up Peel—although the city has put the brakes on it, at least temporarily (the promoters promised to invest $10-million into a tramway linking the area to downtown). He says his support was conditional upon the inclusion of a tramway, and the city’s stalling serves only to “destabilize the promoters.”

CONSULTATION CONFRONTATION:
Chris Gobeil (at mic) and Judith Bauer (second from left)

We are the public, hear us roar

The Conseil régional de l’environnement (CRE) de Montéal, a non-profit urban sustainability organization, meanwhile, has a number of concerns, not least of which being the additional 4,000 to 8,000 parking spots the site will host. Their public consultation presentation urged the developers to make all the buildings smart (which Devimco says it will, with efficient lighting, recycled water and low-consumption plumbing), and to boost the use of public transportation at the expense of car traffic.

But what the CRE, Bergeron and community activists like Gobeil, Bauer and Kandy have in common is a deep frustration at the city’s consultative process. Like most Montrealers, they only heard about the project when it was announced last fall. Instead of holding hearings at the city’s public consultation office before asking for tenders, the city and Devimco presented the unfinished project (it’s still subject to revision) to the public, and to their rage.

The CRE expressed its “profound malaise” at the process, Bergeron criticized the city for allowing “the developers to tell them what to do,” and Gobeil, speaking at the public hearing on March 10, said, “We, the residents of Griffintown, deserve better,” to widespread applause. “Vive Griffintown!” he yelled, sending the crowd wild.

Griffintown:
a chronology

CANAL LIFE: Griffintown flooded, 19th century

by PATRICK LEJTENYI

1654: Maisonneuve grants Jeanne Mance 112 arpents (95 acres) of land in Nazareth fief, farmland that is used to benefit the poor of Hotel Dieu hospital.

1698: A chapel dedicated to St. Anne is founded at the south end of Murray street. Le Quartier Ste-Anne becomes infamous as a den of licentiousness, and the clergy restricts the sale of liquor around the chapel.

1791: Thomas McCord leases Nazareth fief from the Hotel Dieu nuns for 99 years, but five years later, while he is away on business, the land is illegally sold by McCord’s associate, Patrick Langan, to Mrs. Mary Griffin.

1805: McCord returns to Montreal and recovers the land, which has been divided by Griffin into streets and lots. The name Griffintown sticks.

1825–1840: The Lachine Canal built and expanded, largely by Irish immigrant labour living in Griffintown.

1841: At least 6,500 Irish Catholics are said to be living in Montreal, many of them in Griffintown. The area west of McGill becomes a slum.

1843: Irish canal workers in Griffintown stage one of the first labour strikes in Canada.

1843–1846: The canal is widened. Industrial capitalism takes root as industry settles along the canal’s borders.

1847–8: Between 3,500 and 6,000 Irish immigrants die of typhus at Windmill Point in Pointe St- Charles, across the canal from Griffintown.

1852: A fire sweeps through the area’s dense, cheaply made housing, destroying half of it and leaving an estimated 500 families homeless.

1854: St. Ann’s Church is consecrated, becoming the centre of Griffintown life.

1855: The Victoria Bridge opens, built largely by Irish labour.

1858: Riots and street fights run rampant through Griffintown on election day when Thomas D’Arcy McGee is chosen to represent the Montreal West riding, including Griffintown, in the federal government.

1859: The Black Rock is erected by canal workers on Bridge St. to honour the Windmill Point victims.

1876: Prostitute Mary Gallagher is beheaded by drunken rival Susan Kennedy on June 27. It’s said Gallagher’s ghost returns every seven years to haunt the neighbourhood.

1885–6: Massive flooding and fires recorded in Griffintown.

1880–1915: The Grand Trunk Railway is built, making Griffintown and the surrounding areas Canada’s industrial centre. More Irish settle here, and the neighbourhood’s population reaches an estimated 30,000 at the turn of the century. The housing situation deteriorates as rapid immigration continues.

1930: The Depression hits, putting thousands out of work. The population begins to dwindle over the next decade.

1944: An RAF Liberator bomber crashes at Shannon and Ottawa, killing 15, including the five crew.

1956: The St. Lawrence seaway is opened, starting the canal area’s long decline.

1963: Griffintown is re-zoned for industrial use. Many landlords demolish their buildings, and the exodus of residents begins. The construction of the Bonaventure expressway guts much of the remaining housing, slicing the neighbourhood in two.

1970: St. Ann’s Church is torn down.

1975–8: Parks Canada develops and then takes control of the Lachine Canal area, and the federal government invests some $100-million in improvements between 1984 and 2001. Real estate begins booming along the canal and in 1996, the federal government designates a large area surrounding the canal a heritage site.