Opposing housing

>> Centre-sud residents say new apartments
come at the expense of local parks

by PATRICK LEJTENYI

As the Tremblay administration tries to deal with a looming housing crisis set to hit this summer, some Centre-sud residents are opposing city plans to build new apartments in their neighbourhood. The problem, residents say, involves where these new apartments will be. Plans to build subsidized, affordable housing (meaning a 4 1/2 for $500 to $700 a month) on eight small parks between St-Timothée and de la Visitation to the north and south of Ontario—part of the city’s new Solidarité 5,000 Logements—are being strongly opposed by an ad hoc citizens’ group formed after the plans were announced a month ago.

Neil Smith, a 37-year-old translator and St-Timothée resident, found out about the plan after reading about it in the Journal de Montréal. “I wrote up a petition against it and went door-to-door around the immediate area on St-Timothée and St-André,” he says. “I was surprised to find that most of my neighbours didn’t know about it.”

Smith presented the petition at a meeting between residents and their city councillor, Team Bourque’s Robert Laramée, during a walking tour of the parks last Saturday morning. Although between 100 and 150 residents showed up to meet Laramée, not one, Smith says, supported the idea of sacrificing the small parks for the sake of affordable housing. “People weren’t exactly angry,” he says, “but they were surprised. There’s already a definite lack of greenery in the neighbourhood.”

The eight parks were converted from empty lots that have stood there since 1974, when arsonists burned down several homes during an illegal firefighters’ strike. They were gradually converted into parks over the decades. Proponents for development claim the parks are seldom used except by prostitutes and drug addicts to shoot up in. Nonsense, says Smith.

“I’ve lived across the street from the park for almost two years and I have never noticed the drug addicts or prostitutes,” he says. “I’ve never seen a needle in the park.”
As for the claim that street hookers use the park to turn tricks in, Smith says that doesn’t make any sense either. “Prostitutes pick up guys in cars, and have sex in back alleys or driveways,” he says. “Their clients aren’t walk-by, they’re drive-by. These parks are not conducive to sex outdoors.”

Even if they were used for less savoury purposes after sunset, Smith says, they remain an important place for friends, neighbours and parents to meet during daylight hours. The parks are also home to 87 trees, constituting an important lung to the traffic-heavy area.
Smith says the borough councillors’ office told him 38 needles were found in the parks last year. Not enough, he thinks, to justify getting rid of them.

Impressive turnout

Daniel St-Louis, Laramée’s political assistant who also attended the Saturday morning meet, says the councillor was impressed by the turnout and the residents’ concerns. He says in light of the strong opposition demonstrated by residents, the councillor will meet with his two borough colleagues to discuss future public consultations on the matter. They will decide whether or not to continue with planned public consultations at the borough office on May 2.
“The message delivered on Saturday was not the same message [Laramée] received last fall while campaigning,” St-Louis says. “He was happy to hear different concerns from residents.”

Laramée had put forward plans to invest some $2-to $3-million dollars into renovating Viger Square, and proposed expropriating an empty lot at de Maisonneuve between Wolfe and Montcalme to convert into a park. That terrain, St-Louis says, could not be used for housing because the ground beneath it is too contaminated.

Even housing activists like Éric Michaud, of the Comité Logement Centre-sud, aren’t thrilled with the idea of building housing at the expense of greenspace. “There are a lot of parking lots, vacant lots and boarded-up houses that could be converted into affordable housing,” Michaud says. “Our position is that the city should be concentrating on developing social housing on the Faubourg Québec (at Amherst and St-Antoine). We’ve been working on this for 13 years. All the plans for over 200 dwellings are established, the terrain is ready. This project should be the priority.”

Meanwhile, on Monday, the city administration announced projects to build 1,000 units of social housing on 25 municipal lots as the first step of Solidarité 5,000 Logements. The total bill for building the 5,000 units will, according to the city, be around $420-million. The city will take in some $3.2-million a year in tax revenue. :