Although two actions have been brought before the courts in the case of the former Montreal Children’s Hospital, the Office de consultation publique de Montréal (OCPM) will hold a consultation at the end of April on the Square Children’s. The exercise will focus specifically on the City’s by-law which will reduce the number of floors of one of the building complex’s towers from 20 to 4.
Originally, Tower 6 of the real estate project of developer High-Rise Montréal (HRM) was to include 174 social housing units that would have been managed by the Office municipal d’habitation de Montréal (OMHM). However, this component was abandoned, as the City and the promoter never managed to agree on the terms and conditions for the construction of these units.
HRM Project Children had then offered to pay financial compensation of just over 6.2 million in order to be able to carry out its 20-storey tower project without social housing. The City of Montreal rejected this idea and, in September 2019, it decided instead to modify its regulation to reduce to 4 floors, instead of 20, the height of Tower 6 in which social housing was to be built.
This outcome led the developer to file, in March 2021, an originating application before the Superior Court of Quebec to have the regulatory amendment imposed by the City declared illegal. And last January, the promoter filed a lawsuit for 20 million against the City of Montreal and Valérie Plante for damages suffered as a result of non-compliance with the obligations relating to the contract concluded with the City.
It is in this context that the OCPM will hold a consultation, starting April 28, on the by-law reducing the height of Tower 6. Secretary General of the OCPM, Luc Doray acknowledges that this situation is “unusual”. But since the amendment to the city’s by-law was adopted under section 89 of the city’s charter, a public consultation is required, he explained.
A “disguised expropriation”
Partner in HRM with businessman Philip Kerub, Sarto Blouin intends to participate in the consultation, but he remains convinced that in the long term, the courts will rule in his favor because, according to him, it is an “abuse of law” and a “disguised expropriation” on the part of the City. “The mayor is spending taxpayers’ money on her personal vendettas, and is only increasing the bill for damages, already at more than 20 million dollars, to which she is also exposed personally,” he commented in an email. “The City is completely disconnected from the real estate reality on the ground and lives in the hope that developers and new buyers will be the only ones to finance the political agenda of the mayor’s militant base. All tax payers will unfortunately pay the price. »
Project manager in participatory urban planning at the Table de quartier Peter-McGill, Maryse Chapdelaine, is saddened by the turn of events and the absence of social housing on the site. But she wonders what purpose this consultation will serve since it is a judge who will decide the dispute between the City and the developer. “But we are going to speak and we invite all citizens to do so,” she said.
Ms. Chapdelaine also regrets that in its agreement with the promoter, the administration of the former mayor Denis Coderre was not firmer in the obligation to include social housing in the project. Recall that the agreement concluded in June 2017 between the two parties allowed the promoter to pay an amount of 6.2 million if the granting of subsidies for social housing could not be confirmed. According to her, this amount is quite insufficient to carry out a social housing project elsewhere in the city center given the price of land.
Sold to promoters by the McGill University Health Center (MUHC), the site of the former Montreal Children’s Hospital was also to house a school, but this project was finally abandoned in March 2018. At the time, the president of the former Montreal School Board, Catherine Harel Bourdon, had deplored that the City had granted the permits for the construction of residential towers without obliging the promoter Devimco to build a school.