Two days after the election of a second majority Legault government, the Montreal Metropolitan Community (CMM) is asking Quebec City for $100 million over five years to help municipalities acquire nine golf courses that have recently been protected from development. immovable.
Posted at 11:32
“Recent studies and the multiplication of extreme weather events such as the torrential rain episode of September 13 demonstrate the urgency of acting and increasing the area of natural environments and green spaces. Several municipalities want to act in this direction, but they face major obstacles and lack the tools,” lamented Mayor Valérie Plante, who is also president of the CMM, on Wednesday.
She maintains that the new Legault government, which still has only two elected officials on the island of Montreal, “must quickly put in place various measures to support them and encourage the realization of protection and enhancement projects”, in order to to “increase the resilience” of the entire region.
In mid-June, Quebec officially approved the adoption of the CMM’s Interim Control By-law (ICR), and at the same time restricted real estate development on nearly 12,400 additional hectares of natural environments, including six golf courses. “requiring priority attention”. At the end of September, three more courts were added to this summary, for a total of nine.
The golf clubs of Beloeil, Candiac, Chambly, Mascouche, Rosemère and Terrebonne are protected under the control regulation, as are the Boucherville golf club, Golf Dorval and Golf Sainte-Rose, in Laval. .
Towards a nature park in Candiac?
In Candiac, Mayor Normand Dyotte argued Wednesday that municipalities must “respect taxpayers’ ability to pay,” a way of saying he can’t raise taxes to fund land acquisition. “That’s why we need the help of the Quebec government,” he argues, saying he wants to “carry out promising projects.”
His administration is working, among other things, on a nature park project on the grounds of the former golf course. The City has also made no secret of its intention to acquire the golf course, but only when “all the favorable conditions are met” to turn it into a nature park. The project would include an urban forest, meadows, ponds and a trail of several kilometers.
The CMM is also asking for another envelope of 100 million to create a “network of metropolitan parks”, and integrate it into its green and blue network. This second sum would be used to finance the continuation of work at Parc du Domaine-Seigneurial-de-Mascouche and the development of the Greater Montreal River Promenade, on the dike of the St. Lawrence Seaway.
Unsurprisingly, the organization is also asking that Quebec move forward with a reform of the Expropriation Actso that the compensation is calculated on the basis of the fair market value during the acquisition of natural environments by expropriation.
In May, François Legault had undertaken to reform this law and to give the right of pre-emption to the municipalities, while refusing however outright to review the taxation of the cities, which want to get out of the shackles of the property tax. “In the next term, we will also adopt a law on expropriations,” he said during his visit to the Assizes of the Union of Quebec Municipalities.