Classifying the historic core of Montreal’s Chinatown as a heritage site will not be enough to avoid its erosion in favor of real estate speculation, warns a report presented Friday. He recommends that the City take inspiration from initiatives taken by other large cities in North America in order to ensure the long-term protection of this historic site.
Last year, the city reduced the permitted height of new construction in the heart of Chinatown, which has been officially protected since this summer under the Cultural Heritage Act. However, despite these measures, the sector continues to be threatened by residential and commercial real estate projects which increasingly surround it, as well as by rapid growth in rents.
In a report which required a year of work marked by interviews and a detailed analysis of the sector’s land assets, two researchers from the Institute for Socioeconomic Research and Information (IRIS) provide a portrait of the transformations underway. in Montreal’s Chinatown.
Gentrification of the area
The document of around sixty pages, presented Friday at a press conference in the premises of a family association in Chinatown, notably reports an increase in recent years in the sale of properties in the area. A growing share of these properties are also acquired by non-Asian buyers, in particular large real estate developers who wish to carry out projects intended for a wealthy clientele, notes the report.
“The observation is that most buildings are owned by elderly owners who are about to sell their property. This places the Chinatown real estate market at a tipping point,” noted researcher Colin Pratte, co-author of the study, on Friday. “In the next 10 or 15 years, the land structure of Chinatown is set to transform,” he continued.
At the same time, more and more local businesses are closing their doors, unable to support the rapid growth in property values and their property taxes, which is due to a form of gentrification in the area. Moreover, 17% of the commercial space is vacant in Chinatown, compared to 10.7% on average in downtown Montreal, the document indicates.
The risk is therefore very real: the Chinatown of Montreal could experience the fate of that of Washington, where local businesses have been largely replaced by large American chains, which makes this historic site an empty shell with no as its facades and some public facilities to recall its origins. Other Chinese neighborhoods, like that of Quebec, have completely disappeared, recalled Mr. Pratte.
“We can think that in the absence of alternative models, in 10 or 15 years, we will question zoning and the different neighborhood protection mechanisms [mis en place depuis l’an dernier] because they will not have managed to fulfill their promises, in terms of, for example, the vacancy rate of buildings,” warned the researcher.
Get inspired from elsewhere
The report therefore proposes that Montreal’s Chinatown take inspiration from that of Boston by setting up a social utility trust. This model would allow residents of the area to come together within a non-profit organization, and the members would collectively own buildings whose social and community vocation would thus be preserved in the long term.
The municipal councilor of the Saint-Jacques district and responsible for urban planning on the executive committee, Robert Beaudry, also welcomed on Friday the idea of creating a social utility trust in Chinatown. However, “if the community wishes to have a trust, it must come from it,” he clarified in an interview with Dutywhile adding that the City would be in favor of offering “technical support” to facilitate the process.
The IRIS report recommends in the same vein that Montreal take inspiration from cities such as San Francisco and Los Angeles, which have adopted support programs for multigenerational businesses. These notably make it possible to offer subsidies to businesses with a long-standing presence in the Chinatowns of these cities, in addition to helping them obtain zoning changes and public contracts.
The City of Montreal could also help family associations and community organizations in Chinatown to reduce their tax burden. According to the IRIS report, the owners of the 10 associative and community buildings located within the boundaries of this historic site paid $492,486 in municipal taxes last year.
However, these buildings offer important cultural activities, as well as affordable rents for many residents in the area, notes Walter Tom, an involved actor in the Chinatown community who took part in IRIS’s research. “This is why we are asking that these family associations benefit from an exemption from commercial tax,” he argued.
Community organizations can already benefit from an exemption from paying property tax in certain circumstances, but the procedures to be carried out are laborious… and take place in French. “There are mechanisms that are there, but it is not easy when there is a blockage at the language level and a lack of knowledge of the system,” noted Mr. Tom.
This is why the City intends to better support organizations and community groups in Chinatown to help them obtain a reduction in their tax burden. “We can and we certainly want to play a role in this,” assured Robert Beaudry.