Condo conundrum

>> More units not a good thing, activists say


by PATRICK LEJTENYI

What’s a housing activist to do? When the storm broke last week over a condo development project on the Plateau, merchants and tenants quickly cried foul, and just as quickly dumped a 6,000-name petition in city hall’s collective lap. No public consultation, some complained. A drain on already sparse Plateau parking, objected others. The project’s proponents, however, say that parking will by and large be maintained, and that the building of more condominiums will ease Montreal’s increasingly severe housing crisis.
Hogwash, activists say. “We’ve never considered building more condominiums as a solution to the housing problem,” says Marie-Josée Latour, spokesperson for low-income housing lobby group FRAPRU. “In fact, rather than easing the housing crisis in Montreal, the construction of condominiums has made it worse for people with low incomes.”

Another housing activist, Arnold Bennett, the director of Housing Hotline, says more condos are the last thing a city with a housing crisis needs. “Unfortunately, when you lose what little land you’ve got [to condos rather than social housing], you’re going to wind up with a situation like in NDG, where every existing lot, every abandoned gas station, is being used for more construction,” he says. “All of a sudden, there are condos all over the place.”
Is this a bad thing? Won’t more condos mean more availability, thus easing demands on rented apartments? “If you believe in trickle-down economics, I suppose. But you need to address the needs of the poor, not the rich. If you build housing with $1,000 a month rent, what good will that do?”

But to hear developer David Owen’s side, he says his Plateau project is not only in high demand, but has also been studied for over a year by “four or five city services—finance, traffic, housing and a couple of others. It was brought forward by the services and approved.” As for the lack of public consultation, he says none were required. “There was no obligation to consult because the project does not require a zoning change.

“As for the added congestion,” he continues, “people are saying that 80 per cent of the parking spaces will be lost, but that is false and misleading. We are retaining the vast majority of parking spots.”

Much ado about zoning

The whole plan is pretty fishy, its contrarians say. And it is kind of complicated. The developer, D3 Habitations, bought the air rights, not the actual land, over the seven lots on de Lanaudière, Chambord, Garnier, Fabre and Marquette. The 98 one- and two-bedroom units planned (of which, according to Owen, 14 have been sold, valued at between $70,000 and $150,000 a pop) will be built on stilts, thus preserving 110 parking spots, down from the present 139. The sale of the air rights from Stationnement Montreal to D3 was only finalized late in December, in a $1.25-million deal. Axing it, according to city executive committee vice-president and Plateau councillor Michel Prescott, would cost at least $2-million in damages. He, like Mayor Tremblay, blames the whole thing on the previous administration’s lame duck haste.

But this should serve as a warning to the mayor who has stated publicly that he would be the “voice for the homeless,” says housing activist Ted Wright. “Whatever the Bourque administration did before [losing power] has to be gone over with a fine comb. If Tremblay wants to keep his hands clean he has to look over all the things that were pushed through in the latter days of the previous regime.”

But at a Plateau borough council meeting on Monday night, Prescott remained open to the idea of allowing the construction to go ahead. He admitted the project needs more study, but also said, “People have ideas about the project that aren’t based on reality.” The 100-odd Plateau residents in the crowd were hardly amused. Questions arose, again, about the lack of consultation, safety and quality of life. Former mayor and present city hall opposition leader Pierre Bourque was in attendance to answer questions about the project but was not allowed to speak by Plateau borough president Helen Fotopulos because he did not put his name down on the list of speakers. “This isn’t a circus,” Fotopulos said. “We’re not going to turn the procedures upside down to accommodate one individual.” Things got more incoherent from that point on, until the meeting broke up early for a memorial service for late former councillor Thérèse Daviau. After the meeting Bourque chastised Fotopulos’s “reign of intolerance,” but commended Prescott on his “openness to the project.” The council meeting is set to resume next Monday. :