The City of Montreal must abandon its plan to limit Tower 6 of the Square Children’s real estate project to 4 floors, instead of 20, according to the Office de consultation publique de Montréal (OCPM). And it should put in place an action plan with “vigorous measures” to develop more social housing in the Peter-McGill district, downtown, pleads the organization.
The draft by-law modifying the height of the building, tabled by the City in 2019 after the failure of negotiations on the construction of social housing on the site, is “premature and inappropriate”, according to what the OCPM writes in a report submitted to the City.
Ratifying such a settlement would sound the death knell for any possibility that social housing will emerge on the site of the former Montreal Children’s Hospital, argues the organization. Especially since the by-law proposed by the City is not based on any concrete future project and does not include any timetable.
Tower 6 is at the heart of a dispute that has pitted the City of Montreal against the developer High-Rise Montreal (HRM) for years. Originally, Tower 6 was to have 20 floors and accommodate 174 social housing units. This component was finally abandoned, the City and the promoter having never managed to agree on the terms and conditions for the construction of these units.
The agreement signed with the promoter in 2017 provided for the remission of a penalty of $6.2 million to the City if the latter was unable to find the funds to carry out this social housing project. The negotiations finally turned sour and the City decided, three years ago, to propose a regulation which would reduce the height of Tower 6 to 4 floors, rather than 20.
The issue of social housing in the city center
The promoter HRM then went to court to have this regulatory amendment invalidated. He also filed a lawsuit for 20 million against the City and Valérie Plante for the damages suffered. These two cases are still before the Court.
It was in this climate of tension that the OCPM held its consultation last spring. Several community groups have expressed their frustration and disappointment with this “fiasco”.
However, the consultation highlighted the difficulty of developing social housing in the city center given the scarcity and high price of land. The district of Peter-McGill, where the former Montreal Children’s Hospital is located, has very little social housing, several groups who participated in the consultation had also reported.
In this regard, the OCPM makes two recommendations. He therefore suggests that the City implement an action plan with an implementation schedule and “vigorous measures” for the development of social housing in the Peter-McGill district. The Office also proposes that the City adopt measures to oversee and support developers who engage in the “turnkey” delivery of social, family and affordable housing.
HRM delighted, community groups less
Promoter Sarto Blouin, of HRM, is delighted with the OCPM’s recommendations. “I am very happy to see that the OCPM was not fooled by the City’s frivolous representations,” he wrote in an email sent to the To have to.
During the consultation, the City invoked the issues of sunshine and architectural integration to justify the reduction in height of Tower 6, when these elements had not been considered in 2017, notes the developer. “HRM is therefore delighted that the truth is finally coming out, but regrets that the people of Montreal are deprived of the $6.2 million that could have been used for social projects on sites more suited to this programming. »
For its part, Mayor Plante’s office indicated that the next steps will be confirmed “soon”. “But one thing is certain, the social contract of 2017 is no longer respected without social housing”, we argue.
Community groups, on the other hand, gave the OCPM’s report a mixed reception.
Maryse Chapdelaine, project manager at the Table de quartier Peter-McGill, would have liked the Office to decide on the projects to be favored for Tower 6. “It seems that the commissioners only focused on the technical aspect of the file without stopping at the human drama which is at the center of all this: it is a district which has been dispossessed of social equipment [l’ancien hôpital] which could have been fantastic”, she explains, pointing out that in the end, the site will have neither social housing nor a school, contrary to what was promised to the citizens in 2017.
Éric Michaud, coordinator at the Ville-Marie Housing Committee, agrees. During the consultation, his organization had also called for a public inquiry to be held on the circumstances that led to the abandonment of the social housing project for the site, but the Office did not comment on this. proposal.
Still, the OCPM only has a power of recommendation and that ultimately it is the courts that will decide this dispute between the City and HRM, recalls Maryse Chapdelaine.
For the project manager at the Peter-McGill Neighborhood Table, the file of the former Montreal Children’s Hospital is a “very strong symbol” that should encourage government and municipal authorities to be more vigilant. Other large institutional complexes, such as the Hôtel-Dieu and the Institut des sourdes-muettes, will have to find a new vocation and still belong to the Government of Quebec, she warns. “We don’t want this scenario to repeat itself. »