Real estate project in Kirkland | The last bungalows in Montreal?

Kirkland recently gave the go-ahead to what should be one of the last large single-family detached housing developments on the island of Montreal.

The future Village Lacey Green, planned on a huge lot near the Pointe-Claire station of the Réseau express métropolitain (REM), will include 47 detached single-family homes, real estate developer Prével confirmed to The Press.

While the metropolis is working to densify its territory, will these new bungalows be among the last in the Montreal agglomeration? “I don’t have a crystal ball, but the trend is definitely to densify more,” said company president Laurence Vincent in an interview. “It’s going to be hard to do more,” argued the urban planner emeritus Gérard Beaudet, specialist in urban land use planning.

This type of residence represented only 1% of housing starts on the island in recent years. Its construction is largely discouraged by the rules adopted by the municipalities of the Metropolitan Community of Montreal (CMM) to counter urban sprawl and protect the environment. Its development is even more difficult in transit-oriented development (TOD) areas, such as the Village Lacey Green.

The project is located near a future REM station, an area that provides for high-density urban development. But a previous proposal by Prével – without bungalows – for the same land had sparked an outcry in this residential sector in the west of the island. The new version, which provides for a total of 1,000 housing units, is better accepted by the residents’ committee set up to discuss with the company.

The inclusion of detached houses in the plans, “was to respond to a [exigence] integration,” she says, not at a request from potential buyers.

Residential buildings of a maximum of 12 floors are planned for the part of the site closest to the REM station. It is their very high density that makes it possible to build less densely in the section reserved for the bungalows. “If we look at the average on the site, we meet the criteria,” said Laurence Vincent.

“A fruitful consultation”

At Kirkland City Hall, we are delighted with this development plan, which constitutes a compromise between the density rules and the refusal of the current inhabitants of the sector to see residential towers growing in their backyards.

“The planned development offers a mixed neighborhood on a human scale, inclusive and intergenerational,” said Mayor Michel Gibson in a written statement. “The significant diversity found there in the types of housing offered (single-family homes, 2- and 3-storey townhouses and multi-family buildings) is the result of fruitful consultation with residents of the surrounding area and responds to the needs of a diverse clientele. »

Through his communications teams, Mayor Gibson accepted an interview request on this project, before canceling the interview after The Press refused to provide her questions in advance.

“The high-density sector will be located on the eastern portion of the site and will be concentrated within the 1-kilometre radius of the TOD zone of the Pointe-Claire REM station,” he added, still in his written statement. “With a mobility axis to the REM, this sector will be developed around a large central park. »

“A suburban ideal”

Emeritus urban planner and professor at the University of Montreal Gérard Beaudet is not shocked by the project to build detached single-family residences in this sector, even if the bungalows are “a little incompatible with the idea of ​​having TODs “.

However, “it can be justified insofar as we try to have a space of transition between the existing and the potential for redevelopment of this immense land,” he said. “We could perhaps do a little better, but given that we are achieving the objectives [de densité avec le projet global], why not ? »

Gérard Beaudet closely follows the various impulses of resistance to the densification of Greater Montreal and was therefore not surprised to see the neighbors of the project reject his first version: “There is still an ideal of the residential suburb which is very, very strong. »

For the urban planning professor, the Village Lacey Green development is likely to be one of the last to include a significant number of detached single-family homes in Montreal. Developers need gigantic land to adopt the same strategy as Prével.

“There is still a lot of land available” in the east of Montreal, but “the bungalow on the island of Montreal, it has to be top of the range, because the price of the land is much too high. He added: “In the East it is unlikely because the market is not the same. »