Fighting over Jarry

Villeray residents are hoping the proposed
expansion of a police station in their biggest
park is stopped before it starts

CHALET COP SHOP: Station 31

by PATRICK LEJTENYI

It seems like everybody is worried about green space in Montreal these days. From the large residential complex at the old Marianopolis building, to the former convent at 1420 Mont-Royal in Outremont to Jarry Park, where a proposed police station annex may spill over onto public property, locals are wondering just how much the city values its rare, precious and always embattled verdure.

A significant number of Villeray residents are up in arms over the city’s plan to expand Station 31, the small police station on St-Laurent and Gounod that city officials want to make a lot bigger. The plan is to build an annex to the chalet-sized station to house administrative offices over the existing parking lot and connect the two buildings via a second floor walkway. And despite the annex’s green credentials—it will supposedly meet the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards and have a green roof—environmentalists and nearby residents are distinctly less than thrilled.

“We see the construction of a new project in the park as a big shame,” says Coralie Deny, who overlooks the public spaces dossier for the Conseil régional de l’environnement (CRE) de Montréal, a local non-profit umbrella group. “Even if it is an eco-friendly building, it is still a building in a park.”

Deny and the Coalition des amis du parc (CAP) Jarry, a citizens’ group, say the new annex will inevitably encroach on the 89 acres of the park’s green space, even if it will be built over an existing parking lot. They worry it will spoil the view, block access to and from the park and lead to the police’s inevitable demand for more parking space.

François Touchette, CAP Jarry’s president, says public opinion is overwhelmingly against the project, and uses last month’s public hearings as proof. “There were 26 people who made presentations, and 23 were entirely against the project,” he says. “Of the three who weren’t, they were just for the presence of police in the park, as the coalition is.”

Anie Samson, the Vision Montreal borough mayor, Mary Deros, a Union Montreal city councillor, and Helen Fotopulos, the Union executive committee member responsible for green space, have said the project will not encroach on the park’s green space. But that has not convinced Touchette, or many others. He says 525 people signed a petition over only four days in June, and is hoping a referendum on the building—slated for next Wednesday, July 15—will put an end to the project (even though, as a resident of St-Dominique street, he is not eligible to vote). If that fails, he says the coalition may seek legal intervention. He says they asked the Villeray-St-Michel-Park Extension borough council if they had looked at other possible sites, and was told they had not. He also doubts the assurances that the new building, expected to cost $2.2-million, will be built within budget.

Both the CRE and the CAP say Montreal is lagging well behind other North American cities when it comes to protecting green space. The CRE’s Deny says that while some positive policies have been adopted by the city over the past few years, “there is still lots to do,” and says parks are often targetted by developers as prime, unspoiled real estate.

With an eye on the November elections, Touchette says, “We need to get all the political parties to pronounce their positions regarding green space.”