Elected last fall on a program that aims to “exemplify the environment” of the City of Longueuil, Catherine Fournier, accompanied by her team, has already launched several projects to respond to the climate emergency. Meeting with the new 30-year-old mayor, who is determined to meet the environmental challenges of a large suburban city.
Suburban cities, which are still struggling today to counter urban sprawl, must adopt new approaches to improve the living environment of their inhabitants while contributing to climate action. Which ones do you prefer in Longueuil?
The climate emergency requires municipalities to have complementary approaches both in terms of the protection of natural environments, greening and the development of active and collective transport and the densification of habitats. We no longer have a choice. One of our main commitments during the campaign was the protection of more than 1500 hectares of natural habitats.
As we know, natural environments provide us with such important ecological services, by filtering our air, helping to lower the ambient temperature, capturing greenhouse gases… Preserving wooded areas and wetlands is the number one gesture that cities can pose. And we are very lucky, in Longueuil, because even if our territory is very spread out, the natural environments that we have have a medium to high ecological value.
The topic of the hour, urban densification, also seems unavoidable. How are you tackling it in Longueuil?
There are important issues of social acceptability when talking about densification. It must be done with respect for local identities, the identity of the districts, and architectural integration. Our responsibility is also to ensure that we have the infrastructure to accommodate this densification. In the borough of Saint-Hubert, many triplexes have been built in recent years, which has increased the population of the area. However, this had an impact on the flow of drinking water at peak times and created discontent on the part of the inhabitants.
People often think of densification as big condo towers. Some neighborhoods can lend themselves to it, such as the metro district. But there again, if the services and infrastructures do not follow, it will not work. In neighborhoods that have already been built up, we can do densification differently, “soft” densification.
At the moment, city regulations are not adapted and do not favor, for example, bi- or multi-generational housing or the construction of secondary housing. However, in Vieux-Longueuil, for example, there are people who have very large lots and who could build secondary apartments, tiny houses. These are avenues that we will explore, particularly during the Housing Summit to be held next August, which I am co-organizing with my colleague and mayor of Laval, Stéphane Boyer.
The new Longueuil Urban Plan 2021-2035 was adopted before your arrival. It approaches densification solutions on the surface. Is it binding?
We can make adjustments, zoning changes, for example. Without redoing the exercise, which is a long-term task, we can turn around, contribute to enriching it so that it is even more faithful to our orientations. Increase the supply of available housing and promote social diversity, densify the territory, develop services and public transport, etc.
For me, the climate emergency and the housing crisis clearly have common outlets, shared solutions, and it is our responsibility to determine the most effective ones and implement them.
On the territory of your municipality, which is very extensive, the challenge of public transport is also central…
Our cities, the large suburbs, were built around the solo car. We now want people to have the choice between taking their car, their bike, public transport, walking, but also that they think about parting with, for example, one of their two cars. It is only by increasing and diversifying the transport offer that we will push back the solo car.
At the same time, we have to deal with the structural deficit in public transit funding, especially after two years of the pandemic and the collapse in ridership. Do we simply want to go up the pre-pandemic slope or create additional supply? Some fares had to be increased as part of the ARTM fare overhaul [Autorité régionale de transport métropolitain].
Even if the major part of the increase is assumed by the municipalities, a small part goes back to the users. We agree that it’s not ideal when you want to promote the use of public transport, that it doesn’t necessarily send the right signal. But the budgetary reality is also to be taken into account.
During the campaign, you also committed to drawing up a greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory for the City of Longueuil…
Longueuil has no GHG reduction targets. To be sure, it is still necessary to have the precise portrait of the emissions that we generate. It was a commitment, and the completion of the inventory is underway. In the spring, we also signed up to the international “Getting to Zero” campaign, which aims to implement an inclusive and resilient climate action plan towards carbon neutrality, based on the most effective practices designated by science.
We are also going to set up and adopt this year, thanks to the support of the Center québécois du droit de l’environnement, a green charter which will define the environmental rights of citizens, but also the responsibility of the City.
Finally, with regard to citizen participation, we have created advisory committees. Many cities have had them for a long time, but this was not the case with Longueuil. In particular, we have created the Environmental Advisory Committee, for which we have received many applications from citizens who want to help the City in its decision-making. This testifies to the population’s interest in environmental issues.