Wrecking ball stops in mid-swing

>> Benny Farm complex gets a reprieve, even though demolition has already begun

by WAYNE HILTZ

Stripped of its last few bricks and wood and surrounded by massive concrete slabs, a lone skeletal structure on NDG's Benny Farm recently stood awaiting its rendezvous with the wrecking ball.

Last month, two apartment blocks and 72 units of the post-World War II veterans' housing project were demolished to make way for new residences, expected to house an estimated 150 veterans and their families.

"That makes it the worst demolition in the city in the last 10 years," says Montreal developer and conservationist Michael Fish, who believes the Benny Farm is an architectural gem. Fish previously led a failed effort to buy the site, make renovations and turn it into low-cost housing. "It's a terrible waste of money and cruel to the people who were forced to move."

But it remains up in the air whether the rest of the 16-acre site will be the target of the wrecking ball. A new community effort is being aimed at the Canada Lands Company, a federal agency which unexpectedly took over ownership from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) last summer.

Coordinator Jason Hughes, of the NDG Community Council, which has also opposed the demolition, says there is new hope: "We've submitted a proposal for a consultation process--something that we haven't had to date--that would look at the rest of the land apart from the veterans' site," he says. "For us, any redevelopment must address the needs of the local population."

The veterans' needs are taken care of: currently housed in the undemolished buildings, they will move into the new units once construction is complete.

But Hughes insists that NDG also needs housing for other seniors and low-income people, as well as affordable homes for working families. About 2,000 people in NDG are currently on the waiting list for subsidized housing. While the CMHC was intent on condominium developments, Hughes' proposal wants priority given to people who face the greatest need for affordable housing.

Since 1991, Benny Farm's fate has been a bone of contention between the government-owned CMHC, which wanted to sell off most or all of the site to developers, and community groups demanding the site be kept intact, with renovations, to serve local housing needs.

In February, a sympathetic Bourque administration gave the CMHC the green light to demolish the entire site and turn it into condos, high-rent units, family townhouses and seniors' residences.

"Right now, Canada Lands still has the right to demolish the rest of the site," Hughes admits. But when members of a community round table on Benny Farm recently met with Canada Lands executives, he says, they were "not dead set" on demolition.

The fact that a dialogue itself is underway is a vast improvement on the CMHC, which Hughes characterizes as an "unfeeling government bureaucracy that refused to listen to the community for seven years."

By contrast, Canada Lands has been "open and very clear" in trying to respond to local needs. While Canada Lands executives offered no detailed response to the community proposal, Hughes did say that it was generally positive and he expects a response soon.

Maybe they'll keep the wrecking ball at bay a little bit longer.