Half of the 20,000 housing units that will see the light of day on the Namur-Hippodrome site will be affordable and protected from real estate speculation, Valérie Plante promised on Friday. The “city within a city” that the mayor dreams of could also include a tramway.
The Plante administration presented the master planning and development plan for the Namur-Hippodrome district which describes the broad outlines of the development of the site with an area of 95 hectares, part of which, formerly occupied by the Montreal racecourse, is the property of the City of Montreal.
In addition to the 20,000 new housing units planned, the City wishes to dedicate 14 hectares of the site’s surface area to parks and public squares. It also plans to provide space for sports and community facilities, schools and local services. “We do not want to reproduce mistakes of the past, that is to say building, building, without thinking about what is necessary for a good quality of life,” explained Valérie Plante.
By “housing protected from speculation”, we mean housing owned by entities that do not seek profits, i.e. trusts, NPOs or cooperatives, and which meet affordability criteria. We also want a significant proportion of housing to have three or four bedrooms in order to accommodate families.
Experts to the rescue
In 2012, the Quebec government agreed to cede the site of the former racecourse to the City of Montreal in exchange for half of the revenue generated by the sale of land lots to developers.
Twelve years later, no project has yet seen the light of day, and due to the difficulties encountered, the City and the government of Quebec called last year on a group of experts from the private sphere and the community sector in order to accelerate the pace and develop an overall plan for the land belonging to the City with an area of 43.5 hectares.
On Friday, the federal Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities, Sean Fraser, and the Minister responsible for Housing, France-Élaine Duranceau, were at city hall to announce investments of six million dollars so that the group of experts called GALOPH (Acceleration Group for the Optimization of the Hippodrome Project) can continue its work and develop a detailed plan for the project.
Co-president of GALOPH, Pierre Boivin, described the new district which will emerge as a city where it will be possible to get around on foot and equipped with public transport nearby, including the Namur metro station.
The project will attempt to limit automobile traffic in the new neighborhood by providing a ratio of one parking space for every four dwellings. Completing the project will require investments of eight billion dollars over ten years, Mr. Boivin said.
Two-speed development?
Consultations will be carried out over the next year and the first permits should be issued to developers in the Namur sector in 2025, said the mayor of Côte-des-Neiges-Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, Gracia Kasoki Katahwa. Unlike the Namur sector which belongs to private interests, the sector of the former racecourse owned by the City does not have infrastructure, which risks delaying its development.
As for the desired tramway, it would run on the axis of Jean-Talon Street to connect to Cavendish Boulevard, but its financing will require discussions with Quebec and Ottawa, admitted Mayor Plante. Minister Duranceau did not want to make any commitment to this effect. “Funds are not infinite. We have to see how much it all costs, she said. My field is not transportation. We will wait for the detailed planning. We’ll see. »
The opposition at city hall was not impressed by the progress of the file. “The City has owned the land for seven years. And after seven years, all we’re presented with is six million dollars for additional education. We have no financial commitment from the City and the provincial or federal governments to create the underground infrastructure that is necessary upstream of any real estate development,” commented Ensemble Montréal advisor Julien Hénault-Ratelle.
He doubts that in this context, developers will want to invest on the land of the former racecourse belonging to the City while in the Namur sector, the infrastructure is already ready. “We are going to see two-speed development. For the number of housing units needed in Montreal, it would take high-speed development. »