While Rimouski wishes to move forward with a real estate project erected in a natural environment located a few kilometers east of the city center, a group of citizens still questions the sustainability of such an enterprise. Although public consultations have been held and more are still planned, some people feel that their voices have not been heard.
“The online consultation didn’t ask us if we agreed to do a development, it asked us: ‘what do you want the development to look like’”, relates the DD Dominique Bourassa.
Member of the Quebec Association of Physicians for the Environment, Mme Bourassa is the spokesperson for the thirty signatories who submitted, last September, a proposal to the City of Rimouski so that it takes into account the triple crisis – housing, mobility and climate – in its project real estate on land in Pointe-au-Père, composed of woodland and wetlands belonging to him. The number of signatories now stands at 60.
If they initially suggested changing the initial project by developing a natural municipal park, these Rimousko residents have put this idea aside since the presentation in November of the preliminary concept plan by Rimouski. “We saw that the City had not really taken into account the citizen consultations that had been carried out,” underlines Dominique Bourassa.
Citizens also had a period of 15 days after submitting the concept plan to provide comments, a deadline that the doctor considers too short. “We have the impression that there is an electoral deadline which seems to take precedence over taking the time to do things well. »
Consultations to look good
In interview at Duty, the family doctor describes a “biased” process revolving more around the form that the project would take rather than its viability. She notes in particular that to the question asking whether there should be a residential complex in the Pointe-au-Père forest in the Citizen Suggestion section of the report which follows these public consultations, 78% of respondents were at variance.
These figures, regularly brought before the municipal council, are ignored, according to Mme Bourassa, under the pretext that only a handful of people participated in the citizen consultations. “But if we carry out citizen consultations, it is to take this into account,” argues the DD Bourassa. It’s never the entire population that will respond. »
“It seems like we are doing citizen consultations because it looks good, but we are not taking the results into account,” finally deplores Dominique Bourassa.
Opposing crises
Since last winter, Rimouski has wanted to create and make available up to 800 housing units with the New Living Environment in Pointe-au-Père. The City thus hopes to respond to the vacancy rate of 0.2% which is plaguing the municipality of Bas-Saint-Laurent.
If she does not deny the housing crisis which is hitting her city head-on, Dominique Bourassa evokes the mayors’ call for action, signed by the mayor of Rimouski, Guy Caron, who argues that, to face the triple crisis, we cannot pit them against each other.
“If we are currently hitting the wall with the climate crisis, it is, among other things, because of the way we have developed our cities and the way we have become dependent on solo car travel,” argues in this sense Mme Bourassa. In the regions, we are very dependent on our travel by car. »
Mme Bourassa is demanding, in the name of the 60 signatories she represents, that studies be carried out to understand the impacts of the work on biodiversity and natural environments. She also calls for an impact assessment on health, in conjunction with Bas-Saint-Laurent Public Health.
If the project indicates that only 40% of wetlands will be affected, Dominique Bourassa recalls “ [qu’]there is nothing to tell us that by building there, it will not perhaps dry up the wetlands further south. We don’t have any experts who have commented on this concept. »
Do better
Rachel Nadeau, lawyer and doctoral student in law at Laval University and among the signatories who oppose development in Pointe-au-Père, submitted this fall to the City of Rimouski a thesis co-written with Mathieu Perchat, doctoral student in philosophy and Vincent Tremblay, student in Regional Development at the University of Quebec at Rimouski.
The trio focused on economic, environmental, health and housing issues. He relied on scientific writings, such as the IPCC report and declarations made abroad, applying them to the approach of the City of Rimouski.
Among the highlights of the dissertation, Mme Nadeau cites the location of the project, which maintains dependence on the car, the risk of irreversibly altering natural and wet environments and the absence of an exhaustive portrait of housing needs in Rimouski.
Since submitting the brief to the City in October, Rachel Nadeau says she has not heard anything about their work. “I don’t know if it had an influence internally. I know I filed it, we were thanked and it kind of ended there. » After the unveiling of the preliminary concept plan, Mme Nadeau resubmitted the brief with additional comments following it.
Monday evening, the DD Dominique Bourassa will go to the municipal council to ask that we focus on the costs of such suburban development, whether financial or human. “Our goal is to re-sensitize them to their responsibility as elected officials, to listen to citizens and to think about future generations too. »
“It’s not a question of “not in my backyard”, underlines Mme Bourassa. It’s a question of “better in my backyard” and better in the backyard of everyone in Quebec. »