Please leave your egos at the door

Imagine children, each in their own sandbox. One has a shovel, another a bucket and the third a watering can. But everyone stays in their corner, jealous of their precious tool, unable to admit that they cannot build a castle alone.

This image clearly illustrates the inaction that prevents us from resolving the housing crisis which is hitting the poor, but also the middle class, very hard across all of Quebec.

And hold on, this is just the beginning.

If we remain idle, there will be a shortage of 860,000 housing units in Quebec in seven years, according to recent calculations from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC).

That’s a lot of people who don’t have a roof over their heads. In fact, people who break their budget for accommodation.

For the market to become affordable again, 123,000 additional housing units would have to be built per year by 2030. The challenge is immense, because construction starts have been around 50,000 per year, on average, for 10 years.

But for politicians, it is easier to find blame than solutions.

While Justin Trudeau shoots arrows at municipalities who drown projects in bureaucracy, cities criticize Quebec for not doing enough to fight the housing shortage.

Even if these criticisms are perfectly justified, it would be better to focus on collaboration.

In fact, a promising collaborative solution is being put in place for the development of the Blue Bonnets site. A solution that could come to fruition and make it possible, for example, to unlock the potential of eastern Montreal, which contains a lot of contaminated land, which is costly to develop.

The saga of the old Blue Bonnets racecourse is the ultimate symbol of the inaction of our elected officials in the face of the housing crisis. It is unbelievable to leave abandoned, for almost 15 years, a piece of land in the heart of Montreal, a stone’s throw from the metro, which could accommodate more than 6,000 homes!

Fortunately, at the end of May, the three levels of government agreed to form the Acceleration Group for the Optimization of the Hippodrome Project (GALOPH), which also brings together the private, community and even philanthropic sectors with the participation of Centraide.

This cooperation bodes well. But we still need to bring together all the necessary tools for a major project to come to fruition.

To avoid working in silos, we must start by creating an independent NPO which will have free rein to manage the project, as was done for the development of the international district of Montreal, 20 years ago, under the leadership of the architect Clément Demers, now involved in the GALOPH.

This body must have enough power to avoid getting bogged down in bureaucracy. The City may have set up facilitator units to remove obstacles in four districts, but the number of building permits issued there is in free fall.

Then, we must avoid the errors of Griffintown, “which was handed over to developers before an overall plan was adopted,” recalls Gérard Beaudet in his recent work A changing urban Quebec. To create a real living environment, you need a development plan that provides for local services, green spaces, public transportation, schools, daycares, etc.

And this plan must give pride of place to social and affordable housing. But for this, private entrepreneurs must get on board, those who have shunned the 20-20-20 program. This flagship promise from Mayor Valérie Plante required 20% social housing, 20% affordable housing and 20% family housing in their projects. The idea was laudable, but the program was developed in isolation, without taking into account the reality of the promoters. Don’t wonder why it’s a failure.

But the biggest challenge for Blue Bonnets remains the development of infrastructure – water, sewers, electricity, etc. – the bill for which could reach $800 million, not including the cost of road works to open up the site, in particular the essential connection to Cavendish Boulevard.

The City which owns the land must admit that it does not have the means to pay this bill which will necessarily have to be shared. Edinburgh, Dublin, Chicago, Washington, São Paulo… All over the world, we have seen financial partnerships between several levels of government to revitalize industrial districts.

It’s possible here too. We can contribute to Quebec and Ottawa, through the Canada Infrastructure Bank, which last year granted 175 million to develop the energy efficient systems of a neighborhood in Richmond in British Columbia.

The important thing is that it unlocks. We cannot wait another 15 years to have a water distribution system in Blue Bonnets.

Overcoming the housing crisis will not be child’s play. But to get there, everyone has to leave their ego at the door. Let’s take a broad view. Let’s think big. In the end, everyone can be proud of the result.