The City of Montreal is reviewing its strategy aimed at subsidizing the decontamination of industrial land in the eastern part of the city in the hope of encouraging more private owners to seize this opportunity.
Currently, the City reimburses 90% of the land decontamination costs of private companies using its subsidies. These are returned to them at the end of the work, if the City deems it to be compliant. “The owners have to borrow that money and assume the risk because we reimburse at the end if the project has been done in a compliant manner. So there is still a significant portion of risk for the owner”, indicated to the Duty Friday the head of economic and commercial development on the executive committee, Luc Rabouin, on the sidelines of a strategic forum on real estate organized by the East Montreal Chamber of Commerce (CCEM).
Result: few companies use this subsidy program, in which Quebec invested $100 million in 2019. However, currently, there are 35 million square feet (3.25 million square meters) of land in the east of Montreal having been contaminated in particular by the petrochemical industry. The decontamination of these lands is therefore at the heart of the efforts dedicated to the revitalization of the east end of Montreal.
In order to correct the situation, the City now plans to review its strategy for financing the decontamination of land upstream. Thus, eligible companies that have presented a project “rigorously” may receive a grant to finance 50% of the cost of decontaminating their land even before the work in question has begun.
“It will allow the owner to contract with these suppliers and pay them to start the project. Eventually, we will reimburse the other 50% at the end,” says Mr. Rabouin. The City will therefore assume the entire decontamination bill for private lands that apply for a subsidy.
“We are going as far as we can,” reacted Friday the head of East Montreal to the executive committee, Caroline Bourgeois, who believes that the City is “going to the end of its resources” to try to convince private owners. to decontaminate their land. These companies must now raise their hands, concluded Mr. Rabouin.
Real estate development
This announcement is part of a forum underway since 8:00 a.m. Friday morning at the Club de golf Métropolitain d’Anjou which focuses on development opportunities in eastern Montreal. On this occasion, the chairman of the board of directors of the Société de transport de Montréal (STM), Éric Alan Caldwell, spoke about the extension of the blue line of the Montréal metro. These five new metro stations, whose inauguration is scheduled for 2029, could contribute to the construction of 17,500 housing units around them.
“It’s a great opportunity to develop affordable housing, to recreate complete, lively and pleasant neighborhoods to live in,” says Luc Rabouin. However, the challenges are numerous for the east of Montreal, recalled Friday Ron Rayside, who is an architect at Rayside Labossière, by presenting to the many participants in this forum various maps showing in particular the lack of green spaces and the concentration of islets. heat in the east end of Montreal. This is compounded by a significant lack of rental housing in several neighborhoods in eastern Montreal, noted several participants in this forum.
“The housing issue, in the east, is close to disaster”, launched Friday the president of the Angus Development Company (SDA), Christian Yaccarini, who pleaded for the implementation of a strategy aimed at curbing the rapid rise in rents in Montreal’s east end.