The City of Lévis presented, on Thursday, the main orientations of a “climate change adaptation strategy”. Mayor Gilles Lehouillier promises that the municipality will henceforth assess the environmental benefits before making a decision and that it will increase the requirements that will govern future residential, commercial and industrial development.
Lévis now has a more accurate portrait of the “potential risks and vulnerabilities associated with climate change”. According to the models developed by the City, up to 43 days of heat waves per year, with extremes that can sometimes reach 40°C, are potentially on the horizon.
“We could also receive 30% additional precipitation with the risk of erosion, landslides and riparian and river flooding that entails,” says Jean-Claude Belles-Isles, the director of environmental files for the municipality. Conversely, drought could affect the soil, even if the models do not predict any difficulty in accessing water since the City draws a large part of its own from the St. Lawrence.
“Another major hazard, adds Mr. Belles-Isles, will be the changing winter conditions where we will have snow followed by periods of melting. It will bring heavier snow and we may have to adapt our buildings to ensure that there is no overload on the buildings. »
“We cannot escape it,” said the mayor. Municipalities are at the forefront of adapting to climate change. »
Yes to a third road link
Gilles Lehouillier presented, on Thursday, the outline of an “avant-garde” strategy which is still sparing with details, in particular concerning the cost of its implementation. Among the advances hailed by the municipal opposition, the mayor assures that his administration will henceforth impose stricter environmental criteria on future development projects – without necessarily requiring them for those already in place – and that it will measure from now on the value environmental aspects of the proposals before adopting them.
“Concretely”, Gilles Lehouillier mentions, among other things, energy recovery, better management of rainwater and planning that takes into account the protection of natural environments among the tools that the City intends to deploy to prevent climate hazards. .
By presenting the main lines of his climate strategy, the mayor however refused to set his sights on the third link dedicated to public transport now promised by the CAQ government.
“We are in the dream, repeats Gilles Lehouilllier. We will see when a project is submitted”. The elected official insists on the need for a third road link, regardless of its form or location, to cope with the expected growth in his city.
Furthermore, the City also intends to tackle heat islands. “In Lévis, we have a tradition of making surface parking lots,” said the elected official. He will perhaps review our ways of doing things. »
Out of the question, however, to back down on the extension of boulevard Étienne-Dallaire, a site decried by the opposition to the city hall, who would rather see a large park grow where the mayor undertakes to unroll a road lined with cycle paths.
Opposition caveats
The mayor also praised the measures already set in motion by his administration, in particular the electrification of his bus fleet – a government requirement – and the development of sections of lanes reserved for public transport on Guillaume-Couture Boulevard, a major artery that connects the east of the city and the bridges.
For the opposition party Repensons Lévis, these sections will be especially useful for cars. “SNC-Lavalin’s study on reserved lanes said, in 2020, that the increase in the modal share would be zero”, reacted the political party, recalling that when the City was considering the establishment of a rapid bus service (SRB), its objective was to get people to abandon the car in favor of public transit.
“There, we end up with a project for cars, essentially,” the party lamented.
Serge Bonin, one of the two elected members of Repensons Lévis, applauds the City for adopting an adaptation plan while deploring the lack of data. “The diagnosis is good, but it lacks quantified and measurable actions. What is the current portrait of greenhouse gas emissions in our territory? We do not know. Yes, we must act now, recalls the councilor of Saint-Étienne in a press release, but we must know where we are starting from and where we are going. »