In the midst of the housing crisis, voices are being raised in Quebec cities to denounce the “not in my backyard” phenomenon, which is delaying many real estate projects, but also resources intended for people experiencing homelessness, among others. . However, the urgency of the current context should not serve as a pretext for ignoring consultations often necessary to obtain social acceptability, warn two experts. Overview.
Taken from the English expression “ not in my backyard “, the expression “not in my backyard” has been the subject of numerous sociological studies over the years. The concept aims to describe the active opposition of citizens to the arrival near their homes of infrastructure that could disrupt their daily lives or even reduce the value of their property.
“There are people who are not at all uncomfortable saying: it’s a good project, but do it elsewhere,” notes Marie-Ève Maillé, who is a strategic advisor in environmental communication and mediation. In 2017 she published the essay Social acceptability. Without yes, it’s no with Pierre Batellier, a complete chapter of which focuses on the concept of “not in my backyard”. An expression which deserves to be used with caution, this “label” being often used to “marginalize an opposition speech which can have value and legitimacy”, adds the expert.
A noisy minority
In recent months, this phenomenon has notably caused headaches for organizations helping people experiencing homelessness, whose number has increased by 44% in Quebec in four years, according to a count carried out last year. . This is the case of Maison Benoît Labre, in the South-West district. In recent months, the organization has had to face opposition from several families worried about its project for a supervised injection and inhalation center in its neighborhood, near a park and a primary school. The organization’s new reception center, which will also include 36 housing units for homeless people with addiction problems, will finally be able to open in 2024 after receiving approval from the Department of Public Health, which judged this project necessary in the context of an overdose crisis.
“We have a lot of support, but we don’t hear these people. We only hear those who oppose the project and who are very “vocal”,” sighs the general director of Maison Benoît Labre, Andréane Désilets. An outcry that could have been avoided if the authorities did better “education work” on the importance of having more resources to serve the homeless in Quebec, but also to deconstruct certain myths, according to her. “The people who were against the project thought that we were going to provide drugs to users, when that is false,” underlines M.me Désilets.
Several cities in Quebec have faced opposition from citizens this year to wind turbine projects, more and more numerous in order to support Hydro-Québec’s increase in energy production. “It’s the fear of the unknown,” notes Jean-Guy Hamelin, mayor of Saint-Michel, a small municipality in Montérégie where many wind turbines have been installed in recent years. “There was a certain fear among citizens that the value of houses would go [se] devalue, but that has never been the case for us,” underlines Mr. Hamelin.
Real estate in slow motion
For their part, many real estate developers deplore that the pace of housing construction is currently slowed down by citizens who are opposed to urban densification.
“It’s a phenomenon that is really a problem,” says in an interview the co-president and founder of Pur Immobilia, Philippe Bernard, who claims to have seen some of his real estate projects slowed down or scaled back in Saint-Lambert and Montreal, due to citizen opposition to them. “There are projects which are good for the community, which are structuring and there are many of these projects which are blocked by a handful of citizens,” sighs the promoter. And the primary motivation is: “not in my backyard”. »
The vice-president of real estate development at Quorum, Maxime Laporte, had to resolve to give up, from the first months, on a project of 111 housing units that he wanted to carry out on the site of an old garage located near the future station of the Réseau express métropolitain (REM) of Sunnybrooke, in the west of the island of Montreal, due to the opposition of a few dozen citizens who opened a register requesting the holding of a referendum on the change of zoning of the site. The Pierrefonds-Roxboro borough council then aborted the project to avoid a costly consultative process.
“Everyone wants housing, but not in [sa] court,” deplores Mr. Laporte, according to whom cities should have the capacity to better “manage this discontent” so that it does not prevent real estate projects from taking shape.
Social acceptability
In this context, the president and CEO of the Urban Development Institute of Quebec, Isabelle Melançon, welcomes an amendment included in Bill 31 of the Legault government. This will have the effect of allowing cities where the vacancy rate is less than 3% on the rental market to authorize projects with three or more housing units without taking into account their town planning regulations. A measure which could accelerate the approval of several real estate projects necessary to counter the housing crisis, estimates Mme Melançon. “We are asked to build. If we can remove a pitfall, I think that’s a good thing. »
However, public consultations remain essential to the viability of projects, in particular to avoid them being challenged in court by residents after they have seen the light of day, notes Stéphanie Yates, professor in the Department of Social and Public Communication of the ‘University of Quebec in Montreal. In other words, “it takes much longer not to consult and to face social unacceptability than to consult and obtain responsible projects,” she summarizes.
The expert also notes that we often wrongly associate “a reaction of refusal” from citizens to real estate projects with “not in my backyard”, when, in fact, “they only want to be informed” the repercussions these will have on their daily lives. “If I learn overnight that I have a 22-story building coming next to my house, maybe I will oppose it because I wonder who is going to be there, what type of housing it will be and the impacts on traffic,” lists the professor.
Thus, believes the expert, the “recipe for social acceptability” is to take the time to “better inform, but also to better listen to the apprehensions of citizens, to be able to find common ground on the implementation of these projects.