The oil company Shell is building a new gas station on a plot of land in Laval partly cultivated until recently by a farmer, to the great dismay of some neighbors.
The business is set up in front of another service station, on the border between an agricultural area and a residential sector, in the Saint-François district.
“We have been fighting to stop this project for four years,” explained Stéphane Beaulac, who has lived in the area for 47 years. “In 2023, it makes no sense, we are moving towards electricity. »
Shell did not call back The Press.
The site of the future service station – at the heart of a roadside rest project which will also include restaurants – is located on Boulevard Marcel-Villeneuve, at the intersection of Rue de l’Harmonie.
The land is not itself “zoned green”, but is surrounded on three sides by agricultural land – the fourth side adjoins Boulevard Marcel-Villeneuve. Until last summer, the farmer who cultivated them also sowed and harvested on part of the land, following an agreement with a previous owner. “Corn, soybeans, hay,” explains Mathieu Forget, of Ferme Forget.
“It’s always been like that,” continued the farmer, who “doesn’t want to comment too much” on the merits of the project. “That way, at least, he didn’t need to maintain it. We cultivated, it was beautiful, it was clean. »
PHOTO ALAIN ROBERGE, THE PRESS
The land of the future service station is not itself “zone green”.
“It has always been cultivated”
But these corn plants could never be harvested this year: they were razed to make way for the construction site of the gas station.
“Of course we are close to agricultural land, but it has always been commercial land,” underlined Vicky Gélinas, of GD Lead Immobilier, the company that owns the land.
Because it was not used, the farmer encroached on our land, but it was never agricultural land.
Vicky Gélinas, from GD Lead Immobilier
In fact, the land was not “always” zoned commercial. Until 2019, it could accommodate industrial users, but the developer requested and obtained a change in zoning towards commercial uses. On June 20 of that year, 278 citizens would have had to sign a register to force a referendum on the zoning change. There were 208 of them to do so, including Stéphane Beaulac.
“I’ve been here for 47 years and it’s always been cultivated, it’s always been agricultural. When we heard that this project was coming, we didn’t understand why,” he said, adding that there was still commercial land available south of Boulevard Marcel-Villeneuve, in areas already developed. . A Couche-Tard station is also located just opposite, on the south side of the artery.
Impossible today
Claude Larochelle, leader of the opposition on the Laval municipal council, believes that it was on June 20, 2019 that the fate of the land was sealed.
There was opposition from the citizens of Saint-François to this project from the very beginning, essentially because this gas station was located in the agricultural network of Laval.
Claude Larochelle, leader of the opposition on the Laval municipal council
The Laval administration of the mayor at the time, Marc Demers, “refused” that the register of signatures be installed near the affected district, locating it instead at Laval city hall, 21 kilometers away, deplored Mr. Larochelle. “If the register had been accessible to citizens, surely there would be no construction of gas stations today,” he said. I’m convinced. »
The office of the mayor of Laval, Stéphane Boyer, assures that such a project would be impossible today.
“The commercial project on Avenue Marcel-Villeneuve was approved under the old zoning by-law,” his office indicated in a written statement. “Our administration has since adopted, in November 2022, a more restrictive Urban Planning Code to ensure that new projects are more coherent and sustainable. Laval now has one of the most innovative regulations in Quebec. »
This regulation significantly limits the locations made available to oil companies. “New gas stations are limited to highway approaches in order to protect the aesthetics of our neighborhoods and adapt to evolving urban mobility,” said Mayor Boyer’s office.