Housing construction | A quick way to cut “molasses”

(Quebec) The Legault government wants to give a “superpower” to cities, to bypass the “molasses” of urban planning rules and put a brake on “not in my backyard”. The objective: to build faster and higher. Opposition parties fear the appearance of urban warts and a return to favoritism and collusion, but in this fight, the government has the support of mayors, who applaud the initiative.

Between a neighbor “who will no longer see his sunset” and a vacancy rate of 0.4% accompanied by a significant increase in the cost of property, the mayor of Rimouski, Guy Caron, has made his choice.

He is one of those who would happily use this new power conferred by Quebec. The city of Bas-Saint-Laurent wants to build housing, and quickly. But its urban plan dates from 2014, and it focuses mainly on semi-detached and single-family houses.

“It can work as it should, but it takes time. And all the time it takes to build the acceptability of projects upstream is not time when we build and move on to other projects,” he explains.

Surprise amendment

At the beginning of November, the Minister responsible for Housing, France-Élaine Duranceau, took cities, as well as the urban planning and construction world, by surprise. In an unusual manner, she tabled a surprise amendment to her housing bill, better known for putting an end to the transfer of leases.

It will allow municipalities with more than 10,000 inhabitants with a vacancy rate of less than 3% to skip the approval stages for housing projects, whether or not they comply with urban planning regulations, for a period of five years. . The only condition: a public meeting must be held.

Quebec has two objectives. The first: encourage cities to authorize “more aggressive density” projects. Housing projects that have more stories than zoning rules allow will be protected from citizen referendums.

“Most urban plans are low density. This explains why, systematically, all projects that deviate from what is planned find themselves in referendum situations, not in my backyard,” noted in the parliamentary committee Jocelyn Savoie, assistant deputy minister at the Ministry of Municipal Affairs. and Housing.

And the second is to allow municipal elected officials to skip approval stages to authorize a housing project deemed urgent.

It is this aspect that particularly interests the mayor of Longueuil, Catherine Fournier. “There are sometimes so many committees: like the urban planning advisory committee, the demolition committee. There is an increase in delays and paperwork,” she says.

“I wouldn’t use it for all projects, it will be case by case, but if a project meets important needs in terms of housing and affordability, it will weigh in the balance,” says Catherine Fournier .

The president of the Union of Municipalities of Quebec, Martin Damphousse, adds. He believes the “not in my backyard” problem is out of control. “It’s amazing how we get stuck with this,” he said. In Varennes, in his city, projects of three or four floors are blocked, even if it must densify to avoid eating away agricultural land.

They want to reassure the population: it is not because they will use this express route that the projects carried out will be less beautiful, or that social acceptability will no longer be a factor.

Risk of collusion

But in Quebec, the opposition parties believe that this amendment risks encouraging collusion, as well as the construction of ugly buildings that are poorly integrated into their environment.

“The Ministry says: cities govern themselves better, it’s not the same cohort of elected officials. But I have doubts. There are fewer and fewer regional media. Yes, I have this fear. It’s been done in the past. Where there are men, there can be manhood,” says liberal Virginie Dufour.

Because the developers would find themselves negotiating directly with the elected officials of the municipal council to obtain this fast track. This is what worries PQ leader Joël Arseneau, who cites the Îles-de-la-Madeleine, his part of the country, as an example.

“We could create a resort with large condos sold at three million each in the best location on the Islands. The power of money is strong. The pressure would be very strong on elected officials, with the legal and illicit means available to promoters. I don’t want to subject them to this pressure,” he said.

They are asking for safeguards. The deputy for Québec solidaire, Andrés Fontecilla, is not completely opposed to the Duranceau method, but would like it to only concern social housing and student housing, for example.

This is also the solution proposed by Vivre en Ville. “Where we would take less risk is by moving towards off-market, non-profit housing. Let’s try it with this type of accommodation and we’ll see what it does,” says the director of the organization, Christian Savard.

The order of urban planners is also opposed to this expressway and says it fears the construction of buildings that fit poorly with their neighborhoods.

Untenable status quo

For the industry, the current situation is untenable. Louis-Benoît L’Italien-Bruneau is strategic director of urban planning for the firm Paré+. “There are footsteps in my yard everywhere, everywhere, everywhere. […] The population, who want things not to change. But that must change, because market conditions have changed, and because environmental protection requires us to do so,” he says.

He emphasizes that projects that are not built have a consequence: they force young families to move further and further away, causing urban sprawl.

He estimates that with this fast track, a “large-scale” project could be approved in five or six weeks. ” It’s a game changer. I have projects that comply with the rules in force, and we have been working on them for two or three years,” he says.

According to a survey commissioned by the Association of Construction and Housing Professionals of Quebec, there are nearly 25,000 housing units waiting to be built, and which are blocked, mainly, by the risk of ” referendum process and the phenomenon of not in my backyard,” says Fabrice Fortin.

He believes that the crisis justifies strong measures, whether regulatory or financial, and rejects out of hand the fear of an ethical drift.

Same story at the Quebec Construction Association. “We trust the mayors and municipal councilors,” underlines Guillaume Houle. “The amendments are temporary. This temporary component is extremely important. We do not want to undermine democracy, but in a context of crisis, we must do it more quickly,” he adds.

Examples of “not in my backyard”

Pierrefonds-Roxboro

Less than thirty citizens of Pierrefonds succeeded in blocking the addition of 111 housing units right next to the Sunnybrooke REM station, in a devitalized sector of Gouin Boulevard. “The project is completely abandoned,” says Maxime Laporte, vice-president, real estate development, at Quorum, visibly disappointed. “Something that we propose which is in perfect agreement with the PMAD [Plan métropolitain d’aménagement et de développement]densification, TOD areas [pôle de transport collectif], diversity, and who is told no. It’s a fairly striking example of the “not in my backyard” phenomenon,” laments the developer.

Beauport

A developer saw his project shrivel from version to version due to lack of “social acceptability”, “in particular because of the consequences of the project on the visual breakthrough on the river from Avenue Royale”. Originally, in 2020, the project planned 81 housing units on four floors, it only plans 34 in 2022. But citizens are still complaining. “I am still in disagreement, and this, since May 2020, to change the zoning to allow the construction of residential buildings,” one of them wrote to the City of Quebec.

Quebec

Citizens are opposed to a real estate project in the Saint-Sauveur district, on the land of a former restaurant. The project provides for the construction of a 5-story building comprising 55 housing units and has the support of the neighborhood council, but citizens are demanding a referendum.