Community groups and residents of the borough of Pointe-Saint-Charles, in Montreal, demonstrated Monday noon against high-rise development on federal lands in the Peel Basin and will file a petition Monday evening.
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The community made its voice heard in front of City Hall during an event aimed at supporting the Community Development Corporation (CDC) Action-Gardien. This seeks to prevent the Bridge-Bonaventure sector from becoming a new Griffintown, marked by the construction of numerous high-rise condo towers.
A vast “door-to-door operation” has been carried out in recent months to collect signatures.
“More than 80% of the people we met signed! The others especially needed more time to appropriate our proposals. Those against were really the exception!” said Jocelyne Bernier, citizen member of the Bridge-Bonaventure committee.
Since the preliminary version of the Master Plan tabled last spring, the City of Montreal has been in dialogue with various stakeholders to clarify its vision, which will be submitted within a few months to the Office de consultation publique de Montréal (OCPM).
“The City is listening and is continuing a necessary discussion on density and human scale. […] Applying the Regulation for a mixed metropolis with 20% social housing on federal public land in the midst of a housing crisis would simply be unacceptable. The City must be much more ambitious, ”said Karine Triollet, of the CDC Action-Gardien.
The community network and the population of Pointe-Saint-Charles will submit their petition to the City of Montreal on Monday evening during the question period.
“What we want is a development of Bridge-Bonaventure that meets our urgent needs and our aspirations, not a development that meets skyscrapers and investors’ return targets,” said Ms. Triollet.