This makes me think of the strategy of the squirrel, which methodically (or compulsively?) accumulates nuts to be sure not to run out once winter comes.
The City of Montreal does the same thing with buildings.
Since the election of Valérie Plante as mayor in 2017, the City has purchased around thirty buildings intended to be converted into social or affordable housing. An envelope of $600 million over 10 years has been reserved for these acquisitions.
The plan is ambitious, but the results are still awaited. Most buildings purchased with public funds remain vacant and rotting awaiting future projects.
A difficult situation to swallow for Montrealers, faced with a historic housing crisis.
A pathetic example jumps out at me every week: that of the former Montreal Chinese Hospital, rue Saint-Denis, in the Villeray district.
The city paid 4 million in 2019 to buy the imposing red brick building, with the aim of building around forty social housing units there.
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, THE PRESS
The former Chinese Hospital of Montreal, rue Saint-Denis, in the Villeray district
The poorly housed people of the neighborhood, and there are many of them, applauded the transaction. Especially since the empty building had been looking for a vocation since 1999, when the hospital’s activities were transferred to Chinatown.
Everyone has since become disillusioned.
The conversion into housing, entrusted to ROMEL, a non-profit organization (NPO), is in a dead end.
The group failed to obtain provincial funding under the defunct AccèsLogis program. He also did not qualify for the new Quebec Affordable Housing Program (PHAQ) nor for a federal subsidy offered by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), Mazen Houdeib, director of the ROMEL.
These are funds that come from several sources, and they all have different criteria. They are not all compatible. It’s real gymnastics.
Mazen Houdeib, director of ROMEL
Mountains of paperwork were completed, tons of energy wasted, but five years after the acquisition, nothing has changed.
The case of the Chinese Hospital illustrates the limits of the strategy deployed by the City of Montreal.
As I wrote above, the Plante administration allocated 600 million in public funds to purchase vacant buildings and land. The City uses, among other things, its right of pre-emption to get its hands on interesting buildings, with the aim of removing them from the “speculative” market.
They are put in reserve to be resold at a good price to developers, such as NPOs, who will provide social or affordable housing.
Foresighted, responsible: a good plan, on paper.
But here’s the thing: this strategy is dependent on funding from higher levels of government to move to the construction stage. These investments are far from meeting needs, and nothing points to a change of course in the short term.
In this context, a question deserves to be asked.
Should the City slow down the pace of acquisitions and redirect part of the 600 million of its envelope to build herself housing, in the very short term, in some of its many vacant buildings?
Administration response: perhaps.
Let’s be clear: the City has no intention of stopping making acquisitions. But it is currently reviewing its entire real estate strategy, Benoit Dorais, responsible for housing on the executive committee, told me.
The administration wants to “map the path of possibilities for each of the vacant or surplus buildings” of which it already owns.
In less florid terms: she wishes to identify a vocation for these buildings by the end of 2024.
That would already be a good start.
Several possibilities are “on the table” for the future, Benoit Dorais told me. Which could include taking charge of certain constructions by the City itself.
The next acquisitions made by the City will also be better “adapted” to new provincial funding programs, such as the PHAQ, he told me. The idea being to be able to move into construction mode very quickly, rather than sitting on a property for years.
A major cleaning is necessary sooner rather than later, that’s obvious.
The list of vacant or “surplus” buildings owned by the City, more than 70 in total, is dizzying. Many are in very poor condition and considered unsanitary.
In mid-March I obtained details of all these properties, including incinerators, churches, garages, offices, even stables and a vegetable cellar! Minimal maintenance and heating already cost a fortune, without even a single home being built.
I can’t wait to see if the City will indeed be able to “map” the destinies of all these buildings by the end of the year, as Benoit Dorais suggested. I have some doubts, given the exceptional slowness she took to answer my very simple questions about the Chinese Hospital alone. Or his difficulties in telling me how much money has been spent to date, in the acquisition envelope of 600 million…
PHOTO HUGO-SÉBASTIEN AUBERT, THE PRESS
Aerial view of Voyageur Island, at the corner of De Maisonneuve Boulevard and Berri Street
In the short term, the big test will be the conversion of Voyageur Island into a huge residential project1. The Plante administration has suffered several (justified) criticisms because of its slowness in moving on this issue. But if the developers come forward, after the call for tenders launched last month, this could mark a turning point in the way of redeveloping disused sites in Montreal.
This project seems almost doomed to succeed. Because the patience of Montrealers, both that of overtaxed taxpayers and that of the poorly housed, is stretched to the maximum.
1. Read the article “Montreal puts Voyageur Island up for sale with several conditions”