Bridge-Bonaventure sector | More Montrealers near the river

The City of Montreal would like to add 2,600 housing units near Habitat 67, in addition to convincing Ottawa to replace the Bonaventure Expressway – passing nearby – with a peaceful urban boulevard bordered by a linear park. Overview.

New neighbors for Habitat 67 and silo #5

The Press obtained a municipal document, presented Tuesday in a small committee, which summarizes the new vision of the Bridge-Bonaventure sector of the Plante administration. In total: 7,600 new housing units, new employment centers bringing 4,000 employees to this corner of Montreal and a new REM station. It is the second version of the plan since the start of 2022. The first, unveiled in March, had been criticized by the real estate industry for only planning for 4,000 new homes.

This time, Montreal would almost double the bet by opening up to development a large grassy lot located in Cité-du-Havre, the peninsula that already hosts Habitat 67. According to the presentation, the administration believes that 2,600 housing units could be built there. . The construction of additional units would also be authorized at the Pointe du Moulin, which hosts the iconic silo #5.

These projects will present a challenge of “cohabitation with transport activities and infrastructures”, but will offer an opportunity to “improve[er] the supply of local shops and services”, indicates the presentation of the City of Montreal. There is provision for the “inclusion of affordable and social housing”.

A REM station corner Wellington and Bridge?

However, the main residential center in the area would remain around the Wellington Basin, north and south of the intersection of Wellington and Bridge streets, where there is currently a Costco warehouse and an industrial park. Montreal believes that it is possible to develop residential projects without expelling current economic activity.

In these sectors, Montreal would like to “favor built heights varying between 7 and 25 m”, but “allow a few buildings with a maximum height of 65 m, under conditions”. In the latter case, we would then speak of towers of about fifteen floors.

This is also where the City would like to convince CDPQ Infra to install a new REM de l’Ouest station, in order to improve access.

Debate on the future Bonaventure

It is also in the Bridge-Bonaventure sector that the current Bonaventure Expressway is located, at the end of its useful life and destined to be transformed into an urban boulevard. The City of Montreal and Ottawa (which owns the artery) agree on this point, as well as on the idea of ​​shifting the tracks towards the interior of the island to transform the shoreline strip into a linear park equipped with a cycle and walking path.

A federal document dated last June and obtained by The Press thanks to the Access to Information Act indicates that the federal decision is taken: the new boulevard will offer “three lanes in each direction”. Infrastructure Canada would be particularly concerned about the fluidity of trucking lanes.

But according to our information, the City of Montreal and Ottawa continue to discuss certain elements of the project, the financing of which has not been finalized.

Montreal would like a reduction to two traffic lanes in each direction. The City would also like traffic on the new boulevard to be limited to 50 km/h, while Ottawa recommends 60 km/h, according to a source familiar with the matter. The current limit is 70 km/h.

The federal company Les Ponts Jacques Cartier et Champlain Incorporated, responsible for the transformation of Bonaventure, did not want to comment on the file.

Contaminated, but to be developed

If Montreal wants traffic on the new Bonaventure Boulevard to be as controlled as possible, it is because it wants to allow Montrealers to easily move from the linear park along the river to the Pointe-Saint-Charles business park, which constitutes the economic heart of the Bridge-Bonaventure project.

This peninsula (formerly called Technoparc) reclaimed from the river by rubbish piled up for more than a century cannot accommodate housing due to soil contamination, but the City hopes to set up sustainable development companies there. Mel’s film studios are already there.

The City thus wants to “reinforce the dominant economic vocation of the sector” and employ a total of 6,500 people in the Bridge-Bonaventure sector.

The Plante administration declined to comment further on the case.

Corrigendum
The master plan for the Bridge-Bonaventure sector provides for 7,600 new dwellings and not 7,500 as indicated in a previous version.