The City of Montreal has launched a vast project to dust off its urban plan and update the 2008 transport plan. the next 25 years. Montreal has come a long way since the adoption of the first urban plan by Jean Doré’s administration 30 years ago, but the climate crisis now imposes an urgency on decision-makers.
Reference documents for town planning, urban plans are a requirement of the Act respecting land use planning and development. The one that Montreal wants to develop will be inspired by discussions with citizens and will be the subject of consultations over the coming months by the Office de consultation publique de Montréal (OCPM).
The working document made public by the City outlines the main objectives aimed at designing the city of tomorrow along three axes: the metropolis, the district and the building. There is a bit of everything in this document, where the main virtuous principles are described: year-round access to the banks, green streets, bicycle facilities for citizens of all ages, green roofs, buildings that are not energy-intensive, housing adapted to all Montrealers, regardless of their situation or income, and many other statements that make you dream.
On the images that illustrate the document, the cars are rare, even non-existent. Responsible for urban planning on the executive committee, Robert Beaudry had not noted this detail. “It’s a working document, and we don’t deny that there will be cars [en 2050].Trucks will also still be there, but we want freight transport to evolve. It is above all a reflection on the sharing of types of mobility,” he explains.
If Montreal has chosen the 2050 horizon to develop its plan, it is because it has set itself the objective of achieving carbon neutrality at that time. This carbon neutrality applies for the moment to the institution of the City, but the citizens will also have to participate in it, advances Robert Beaudry. “We still have to collectively make an effort. It goes through transport and buildings. But the objective is to inspire this movement. Beyond our personal objectives, there are the objectives of the IPCC [Groupe intergouvernemental d’experts sur l’évolution du climat] “recalls the chosen one.
According to Robert Beaudry, the climate crisis requires the adoption of energetic measures to make the city more resilient. And although the City does not have control over all aspects of its development, the Plante administration intends to make housing a central issue. “Today, we find ourselves with people from the middle class who are unable, on the island of Montreal, to find housing that respects their ability to pay. If we want to build a city with lively neighborhoods, we have to move this question forward, ”he argues.
We still have to collectively make an effort. It goes through transport and buildings. But the objective is to inspire this movement [de la carboneutralité].
The vast construction site of 1992
On June 9, 1992, The duty headlined “Montrealers will be forced to convert to public transit”. The day before, the person in charge of planning and urban development under the administration of Jean Doré, André Lavallée, had unveiled the urban plan, the first of the City of Montreal.
This plan, considered a “social contract” with Montrealers and private and public partners, provided for a set of measures, such as the development of several lanes reserved for buses, a parking policy to encourage Montrealers to opt for public transport , the greening of the city with the massive planting of trees and the creation of parks in the alleys and schoolyards. It detailed numerous ambitions, including the construction of 60,000 new housing units, particularly downtown, the transformation of the former Miron quarry into a green space, the revitalization of Sainte-Catherine Street and the restoration of Mount Royal.
But the urban plan was much more than a list of projects to be carried out in the more or less long term. It had simmered in the militant base of the Montreal Citizens’ Rally (RCM), while Montreal was led by Jean Drapeau, who had launched several “urban revitalization” projects that disfigured certain neighborhoods.
At the time, despite the inauguration of the metro, the car was king. “The vision that the City of Montreal had was: we demolish and start over. Modernity passed through demolition,” recalls André Lavallée, in an interview with To have to. “And 25% of downtown Montreal was made up of vacant lots. City Hall was lined with parking lots and abandoned lots, he says. The suburb I’m tired had been razed to make way for Radio-Canada.
Thirty years later, André Lavallée emphasizes that many projects appearing in the first urban plan have been completed, whether it is the Center de commerce mondial, the rehabilitation of rue de la Commune or the revitalization of the old Angus factories. The Urban Plan was anchored in the “real city” and it was the result of an unprecedented democratic exercise at the time, he insists.
The city center was also a centerpiece of the urban plan. Under the impetus of the RCM and a new regulatory framework, the residential function of the city center has increased with a concern to maintain the identity of the districts that make it up.
A huge puzzle
If he welcomes the exercise launched by the Plante administration for the new urban plan, André Lavallée nevertheless judges that the “generous” proposals dwell too much on the details without defining the real priorities. “It’s like starting a huge 10,000-piece puzzle, but not taking the time to group the pieces by color,” he says. But I understand that the exercise is beginning. I have no choice but to give the runner a chance. »
President of the Ordre des urbanistes du Québec, Sylvain Gariépy acknowledges that the orientations described in the City’s working document are “a bit generic”. “It’s a way of launching the project and then arriving in the most concrete way,” he believes.
He pointed out that the Eastern and Western Metropolitan Express Network (REM) projects will have an inevitable impact on the development of the future PUM and will modify living environments. “It will greatly influence the way we rethink the territory. It will be necessary to draw up an urban plan which will take these networks into account. »
He wonders, however, if the City will have the means to match its ambitions and if the future national policy on architecture and land use planning that Quebec is preparing will have effects on the urban plan of Montreal and other Quebec cities.
“The urban plan is a living document, and it will change throughout its existence,” recalls Robert Beaudry, however.
The development of the PUM is only in its infancy, and its adoption is scheduled for 2023. The boroughs will also have their local plans which will detail the regulatory frameworks concerning the development of their territory.