Due to the increased risk of flooding, new buildings constructed in certain areas of the Ville-Marie borough will no longer be able to have housing and living spaces in the basement.
“For example, in the Centre-Sud, in the corner of Parthenais Street, there is a lot of flooding, so we decided as a borough to refine the regulations for new construction in areas likely to be flooded, where we will not allow new housing in basements. I call that doing acupuncture,” explained Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante on Tuesday morning at a press briefing.me Plante is also the mayor of the Ville-Marie borough.
On Monday evening, at the city council, the person responsible for water on the executive committee, Maja Vodanovic, suggested that Montrealers should perhaps give up living in the basements of their homes, since flooding and sewer backups are becoming more and more frequent due to torrential rains caused by climate change.
PHOTO CHARLES WILLIAM PELLETIER, ARCHIVES SPECIAL COLLABORATION
Maja Vodanovic
“Ms. Vodanovic was answering questions from citizens in a specific area of Saint-Léonard, we could feel their distress when they said they were being flooded year after year, and wanted to know what to do,” said Ms.me Plant.
“It’s also a message for the borough of Saint-Léonard. There needs to be some thought given to urban planning regulations, to what we want to accept as construction in the future. The borough needs to make the same assessment as Ville-Marie: where are there natural basins, where are there old rivers that flow underneath? The regulations need to be adapted so as not to create a problem that citizens will have to deal with later.”
No changes to current accommodations
The mayor emphasizes that there is no question of asking people who currently live in basements to leave their homes.
But in some places, insurers are no longer there, it’s extremely stressful, so we try to help destitute citizens who are struggling with repeated flooding. For example, we could now prohibit houses that have underground garages, considering that there are natural basins in certain areas.
Valérie Plante, Mayor of Montreal
In Ville-Marie, the borough council adopted a draft bylaw last June to prohibit, in certain high-risk areas, “the replacement of a non-habitable space located in the basement with a habitable space, unless this conversion is done in conjunction with work increasing the building’s impermeability to heavy rain.”
The construction and expansion of underground spaces intended for housing and businesses will also be restricted.
The draft bylaw includes a map of the borough indicating the location of basins and water flow corridors, where inhabited basements will no longer be permitted.
MAP PROVIDED BY THE CITY OF MONTREAL
The draft by-law includes a map of the borough indicating the location of basins (in purple) and water flow corridors (in red), where inhabited basements will no longer be permitted.
The loss of these spaces could be compensated by adding floors to new buildings, for which height constraints could be removed, explains the borough’s website.
“Since, according to projections for 2050, the critical intensity of rainfall will increase by an average of 15%, and the frequency of floods is likely to double, the project includes provisions to make the built environment and neighborhoods more resilient to climatic hazards,” the district indicates.
Mayor Plante reminded that citizens who wish to carry out work to make their homes more resistant to flooding and backflows can benefit from subsidies from the municipal Rénoplex program.