The Montreal plex to save the planet?

The city of tomorrow will be green or it won’t be, scientists warn. To achieve carbon neutrality and limit global warming, experts suggest denser living environments, where everything can be done on foot. And if the key was in a model more than a century old: the Montreal plex? Some believe in it as hard as the wrought iron of an old balcony…

Simon Chabot
The Press

The College Français bell has just rung and the students are dispersing, on foot or by bike, through the streets of Mile End on this lovely Monday in May. Hidden in the trees on Waverly Street near Fairmount, a cardinal sings his clear song. Nearby, Groll lane, a man is strumming his guitar, a teenager is waiting for a friend, a neighbor is reading in her yard. Further on, a dog yelps, a baby cries, two children play ball. Still others accompany their parents who go shopping on rue Saint-Viateur…

Even if there is nothing revolutionary about it, the daily life of this central district of Montreal, with streets lined with duplexes and triplexes stuck on top of each other, is for many experts the model to follow for the future of cities. and the suburbs: a pleasant and lively living environment all day long, where the car is optional. For the happiness of those who live there… and that of the planet.

Cities have a role to play in avoiding disasters caused by global warming, insists the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The time has come to curb urban sprawl, claims for its part the Advisory Committee on Climate Change in Quebec, which calls in particular for the densification of inhabited areas. Christian Savard, general manager of Vivre en ville, shares this point of view, no offense to certain elected officials in Quebec, where the question has recently sparked lively discussions.

The organization that works on the development of viable communities pleads for densification on a “human scale”, which is more socially acceptable. “My preference would be to automatically authorize three-storey buildings everywhere,” wrote Christian Savard in a recent post. This is the choice made by Minneapolis with the aim of social justice and environmental protection: duplexes or triplexes authorized everywhere. A strategy also adopted by other cities, and which rallies Republicans and Democrats, something rare in the United States, points out Mr. Savard.

Neighborhoods built on this scale make infrastructure profitable and are “known as the safest and most comforting in terms of human habitat,” says David Hanna, a retired urban planning professor from UQAM. “People know each other there, rub shoulders on the balconies, unlike in detached single-family neighborhoods or high-rise apartment buildings, where they tend to avoid each other,” he continues.

The bad years of the plex

However, plexes have not always had good press in Montreal. Appeared in the middle of the XIX^and century, they especially shaped the metropolis in the first third of the 20th^and century, sprouting up like mushrooms from the Plateau Mont-Royal to Villeray, but also in Rosemont, Verdun and Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, then suburban districts. However, from the 1940s, this type of dwelling designed to house those who left the countryside by the thousands fell into disuse. “Until the 1980s, it was a period of strong prejudice against plexes,” says David Hanna. In town planning, in economics, in sociology, the specialists saw them as a bad kind of building, retrograde, not modern. »

As urban sprawl lengthened travel, the “old neighborhoods” began to attract young adults and families again, seduced by their vitality. In the aftermath, with their exterior staircases and their ornate copings, the plexes have even become an emblem of Montreal, even decorating postcards…

The secret hides in the alley

For Francisco Toro, who left his native Venezuela to settle in Rosemont 11 years ago, the secret of the Montreal model is however hidden from view; it is in the alley, the space for socialization that gives life to the neighborhoods, according to him. “We don’t show the alley during the visit, but we have to value it, it’s a constituent element of what makes Montreal work,” he says, greeting neighbors who pass by.

Surprised by everything that was happening there when his son, a Pokémon card enthusiast, started hanging out with his neighbours, the freelance journalist founded Vive la allée last year, an organization that offers Montrealers the opportunity to invest in this precious place, but sometimes neglected, thanks to artistic interventions. In an open letter published in The dutyMr. Toro therefore invited decision-makers to adopt not only the plex model throughout the Montreal Metropolitan Community, but also that of the alleys.

An inspiring role model

The architect Jean Verville, recognized for his audacity, also attaches great importance to the role of the alley, “the element that stimulates the community, the meeting of people”. He also recognizes the many qualities of traditional Montreal neighborhoods, but it would be a mistake for him to reproduce them identically out of nostalgia. In old plexes, he says, “the dimensions of living spaces are not compatible with the desires and realities of people and young families, who prefer more open spaces.”

Jean Verville has also reflected on his NMBHD project, in Rosemont, “to partly revisit certain weaknesses of the current triplex”. In the main unit occupied today by Nancy Marie Bélanger and Hugo Didier, with their son, the size of the rooms has thus been reduced and the storage spaces brought together in a single room to enlarge the living spaces. The three units of the building, all on more than one level (to break the horizontality of period constructions), each benefit from a private outdoor space, but in relation to the neighborhood, and windows that let in a lot of light.

The reflection on the future of the plex must continue, adds the one who teaches architecture at Laval University, to convince those who have a preference for single-family homes to adopt it. “What are they looking for in the suburbs? A green field, space for children… That’s what you have to be sensitive to. »

In town, land is now too expensive to build duplexes or triplexes in large numbers, observes Jean Verville. Developers are therefore opting for higher densities. But even in this context, the lessons of the past are useful, he thinks, in particular with regard to the role of semi-private spaces. The lane can thus be transformed into a central courtyard where local residents sometimes share terraces, pavilions, etc. In any case, avoid surrounding buildings with simple inhospitable parking lots.

In the suburbs and in the city

In the suburbs, where speculative pressures are less great, plex neighborhoods still have a bright future ahead of them, believes Christian Savard, of Vivre en ville. “The future of the triplex is there,” he says. Adapting it to the taste of the day, then implementing it massively, alongside townhouses and a few towers for those looking for smaller accommodation, could transform dormitory towns into lively neighborhoods. “It’s probably the density best suited to large suburban lots that have yet to be developed. We can recreate something resembling the city, where people are less dependent on their car, with grocery stores, CPEs and fairly efficient public transport,” explains Mr. Savard.

Demographers predict that 500,000 more people will live in Greater Montreal within 20 years. Multiplying medium-density areas on the outskirts inspired by the city’s centuries-old neighborhoods (which themselves grew in old fields in another era) would increase the supply of attractive housing tenfold throughout the region, while stopping sprawl urban environment to preserve the last natural environments and reduce greenhouse gases linked to transport. “It reduces the pressure on the environment, but also on housing,” concludes Mr. Savard.

The good old Montreal plex would therefore be part of the solution to the climate crisis as well as to the housing crisis. Not bad for a 19th century concept^and century…