Given the many pitfalls in the development of the former racetrack site, the City of Montreal and the Government of Quebec called on experts from the private sphere and the community sector to try to speed up the pace and develop a master plan for the huge land.
Mayor Valérie Plante assures us that this is not an acknowledgment of failure, even if the City’s attempt to attract private developers has not yielded the expected results.
The City was able to select an organization, Espace La Traversée, for the construction of 200 to 250 affordable rental units, but it came up short in its attempt to interest private developers to purchase a lot. No developer submitted a bid following the call for proposals launched by the City last October.
“The cost of infrastructure is significant. It’s a huge territory, full of potential, but also full of challenges, “said Valérie Plante during a press conference on Monday, accompanied by the Minister responsible for the Metropolis, Pierre Fitzgibbon, and the Minister of Housing, France-Élaine Duranceau.
Montreal and Quebec have therefore agreed to create the working group called GALOPH (Acceleration group for the optimization of the racetrack project) composed of representatives of civil society. Pierre Boivin, President and CEO of Claridge, and Janie Béïque, President and CEO of the Fonds de solidarité FTQ, will chair the work of this committee. They will be joined by 14 other members, including Claude Pinard, CEO of Centraide of Greater Montreal, Édith Cyr, Executive Director of Bâtir son quartier, and real estate developers such as Roger Plamondon, President of the Broccolini Group, and Laurence Vincent, President by Prevel.
Over the next eight months, the members of the committee will examine the issues of infrastructure planning, public transit, schools and civic facilities. They will also have to propose a business plan. “The biggest challenge with the racecourse sector is that you have to do all the infrastructure: the pipes, the electricity, the roads, the transport, everything. Not only is it a challenge, but there are costs attached to it, ”recalled Valérie Plante.
Pierre Boivin maintains that the committee is not starting from scratch because the City, over the past five years, has carried out several planning works. He was pleased that the Government of Canada was ready to contribute to the efforts. “The programs that exist today will not be able to meet the needs of the crisis [du logement]. It will take more resources,” he said. “We will find new funding models together. »
Quebec plans to review the agreement that was reached with the City in 2017 in the wake of the sale of the racetrack and which provided for the sharing of revenues related to the sale of lots to promoters. “We are going to look at new means of financing,” said Minister Duranceau.
The opposition to City Hall believes that the partnership with Quebec and Ottawa “augurs well for assuming the leadership that was sorely lacking in the development of the sector”.
For his part, Jean-Marc Fournier, CEO of the Urban Development Institute (IDU), considers that the creation of the committee is a promising idea. “With the increase in construction costs and the costs of financing at the end of the pandemic, the question of housing requires a much more in-depth reflection than what we did before. »