The responsibility incumbent on the municipal level in the fight against climate change is indisputable today. It now belongs to a younger generation of elected municipal officials, younger, greener and more sensitive. During the Assises de l’Union des municipalités du Québec (UMQ) which I attended last week, elected officials talked a lot about sustainable mobility, urban densification, as well as urban sprawl and greenhouse gases.
The Act respecting land use planning and development governs the management of urban densification projects when they require a zoning change, which is often necessary. However, the law allows residents of contiguous areas, however few they may be, to have such projects or not, despite the developer’s objective and the will of elected municipal officials. It is important to specify here that the densification of the urban territory is not a figment of the imagination and has figured since 1994 in government orientations in Quebec.
In 2017, the UMQ insisted that the referendum approval mechanism be replaced by a rigorous public consultation process, involving citizens upstream, but giving elected municipal officials the ultimate responsibility for deciding on the realization of a real estate project. . The argument was based on the fact that the referendum mechanism placed refractory citizens in a de facto conflict of interest, since they inevitably defend particular interests (the tranquility of the neighborhood, the fear of increased traffic and noise , etc.) to the detriment of the public interest (the optimization of infrastructures, the development of local services and public transport, etc.) of which the municipal council is the guardian.
I myself fought to authorize the expansion of a residence for seniors in a neighborhood where the population was aging. I saw a project to convert an institutional building into housing in the heart of Sherbrooke be withdrawn because a handful of citizens opposed it. Many developers are even hesitant to submit densification projects in the built environment due to citizen outcry. We understand better why the Educational Childcare Act does not allow citizens to oppose the establishment of a CPE in a residential environment.
In 2017, the legislator granted municipal councils that adopt a policy of public participation, a policy developed, among others, with the UMQ, the Institut du Nouveau Monde and Vivre en Ville, to evade referendum approval on a zoning change. To take advantage of it, the municipality need only adopt a by-law to this effect. Since then, few have adopted such a regulation. Some cities put up with a policy of public consultation without it replacing the referendum requirement, while others still say they are powerless in the face of citizen reactions and want Quebec to intervene.
The debate at the time was not yet part of the climate emergency. Add post-COVID real estate pressures; residential development must be (re)thought in terms of consolidation and restructuring of existing urban environments rather than on the outskirts. In this context, each referendum defeat or withdrawal from an urban densification project has as its corollary increased pressure in favor of urban sprawl.
The profile of municipal actors is changing, as is the environment in which they must act. This new environment shows us that the referendum practice is less and less well founded on the public interest and is becoming a safe conduct towards urban sprawl. Tools are already available to municipalities to promote urban densification projects insofar as they meet the objectives of the municipality.
Let’s be clear, this mechanism does not regulate everything, but combined with other regulatory powers, it is certainly the beginning of a responsible urban planning practice. The new generation of elected municipal officials whose ambition is to save our planet will however have to show political courage to use them.