Laval | Film studios on arable land

The City of Laval is rolling out the red carpet to allow the construction of one of the largest film studio complexes in North America on land that was until recently under cultivation.

Although the land is not officially in protected agricultural territory, two visions clash in Laval. Citizen groups and environmentalists want the agricultural tradition of the land to be maintained, while the mayor and the developer dream of making Laval a cinema hub.

The Laval municipal council will meet this Tuesday evening at 5:30 p.m. in an extraordinary session to vote to modify its development plan. A zoning change will allow the erection of seven studios, including one of 60,000 square feet, which would make it the largest in North America.

The 2.2 million square foot land located in the Saint-François district currently belongs to the City.

If the zoning change is approved as planned, Laval then plans to sell the land for the sum of 32.1 million to businessman Michel Trudel, former director of MELS studios.

A well-known figure in the cinematographic world, Michel Trudel has attracted major Hollywood productions to Quebec for decades.

The project called “Cité du cinéma” or “Trudel Studios” would be located opposite Avenue Marcel-Villeneuve, in the east of the island. It also provides artists’ dressing rooms, costume manufacturing workshops, set production workshops and warehouses.

“Inconsistent”

This decision goes in the opposite direction of what Mayor Stéphane Boyer defended last week before the national consultation aimed at modernizing the Agricultural Land Protection Actdeplores Carole-Anne Lapierre, spokesperson for the SaluTERRE Alliance, a group which aims to protect agricultural land.

Mayor Boyer said he wanted to increase the area of ​​cultivated land in Laval and even expand the protected agricultural territory on the island.¹.

“It surprised us because for us, it is inconsistent with the decision that will be announced that the City wants to move forward with the Cité du cinéma project, all on arable land,” regrets the one who is also an analyst at Équiterre.

Although the land is not located in the “green zone”, a portion was cultivated until 2022 by two agricultural companies on an alternating basis. Corn, soybeans, broccoli and cabbage grew there for decades. However, at the time the project was submitted, the farms did not have a lease with the City to exploit these lands.

“Living soil is something irreplaceable,” explains M.^me Stone.

The current land is zoned 40% industrial and 60% residential. We planned to build an eco-district there. If everything goes as planned, the zoning will become 100% industrial.

“Maintaining these lands is a fundamental pillar to guarantee our food autonomy in a context of increasing climate change,” believes Jonathan Tremblay, co-spokesperson for the Coalition Mobilizations Citoyennes Environnementales de Laval.

“It’s a very nice project in the wrong place,” believes the leader of the opposition at city hall, Claude Larochelle.

“We really don’t have the impression that the economic development department did its job of really finding other alternatives for Mr. Trudel. But obviously as the other alternatives, it will not be City land that we will zone everything correctly and sell it to you at a price that everyone would like to have,” he adds.

Mayor Boyer believes in the project

This investment could reach 200 million, create between 250 and 500 jobs and generate tax revenue of 3 million annually, estimates the City of Laval.

“Yes, it is land that can be cultivated and has already been cultivated like many lands in Laval, but it is land that is dedicated to residential and industrial development, and it is the only land that can accommodate the project,” replied Mayor Boyer in an interview with The Press.

A Léger survey carried out among 502 respondents in October 2022 reveals that 58% of citizens are for the project, 26% are against and 15% refused to answer or are undecided.

“This issue has greatly contributed to our thinking on agricultural areas well beyond this area,” he added.

This is why, he said, at the next regular meeting of the municipal council, on February 6, the council will adopt a motion to ask the government of Quebec “to support the City of Laval in its desire to promote and optimize the use of its agricultural territory, including the possibility of expanding the permanent agricultural zone”.

“I find it interesting, in fact, the dialogue that it has allowed for two years. »

He promises to reinvest half of the sum from the sale of the land – or 16 million – in the Saint-François district.

Squatted land?

Called to react, the promoter Michel Trudel replied that the land was cultivated without a formal agreement.

“It was stolen to farm. We’re going to say the real words,” he said.

“They didn’t put them in prison for [avoir] planted potatoes, but there, the City said: “OK, that’s enough, we want our land”, that’s all. »

“They would have found me the same land, but in another place, it doesn’t change anything for me, […] the terrain had to be correct, there had to be no brown areas, there had to be no wet areas, no bullfrogs and crocodiles and whatever else you want because they all saw crazy with their bugs. It’s land that is clean, that is ready to build on,” he adds.

Serge Mathieu, owner of one of the two farms that cultivated the plot, is not against the project.

What does he think of the groups and citizens who have mobilized? “Everyone who doesn’t know anything,” he said. Like the “town people” who want to “conserve the frogs”.

The second company, Productions Margiric, did not respond to The Press.

“We have to decide”

“I don’t know why citizens always want to get us involved in this,” adds the president of the Union of Agricultural Producers of Laval, Gilles Lacroix.

“If citizens want to cloak themselves in the defense of heritage, although they help us keep our 28% [de terres agricoles protégées à Laval], that they help us develop it, that they come and buy our products so that we are able to live. »

According to a consultation report which will be presented this Tuesday evening to the municipal council, Laval indicates having received, in writing, 167 “favorable interventions” for the project and 32 “unfavorable interventions”.

“In life, you have to make choices, you have to decide, and I think we are capable of enabling this project, of carrying out economic development. It’s a great project, it’s not a concrete mixer, it’s not an Amazon warehouse, it’s a new industry that we’re creating on the North Shore,” said Mayor Boyer.