The right project for the right golf

A real estate development or a park?

Since golf has been in decline, despite a small revival caused by the pandemic, disused golf courses are highly coveted by groups with diametrically opposed visions.

Real estate developers are already rubbing their hands imagining the new neighborhoods they could develop there. Environmental groups have taken out their signs and are calling for a moratorium. They would like us to transform these manicured lawns into protected green spaces. As for elected municipal officials, they are caught between a rock and a hard place and require time to reflect.

Fortunately, the Montreal Metropolitan Community (CMM) will give them time today by adopting an interim control regulation for six cities that will have to make up their minds about the requalification of their former golf course. This is a good thing. This regulation also protects them from pressure from promoters.

It also gives the CMM, which brings together the 82 cities of the greater Montreal region, time to come up with a new Metropolitan Land Use and Development Plan (PMAD).

This vision, which should be presented no later than 2024, will frame their development for the next 10 years. The citizens of each of these municipalities have their say in the debate surrounding the requalification of golf courses.

They have to consider several things.

First, we must not confuse “green spaces” and “natural spaces”. As the professor of ecological economics at the University of Quebec in Outaouais, Jérôme Dupras, has already pointed out in our pages, golf courses are often heavily contaminated with pesticides and other chemicals. Over time, the animals left the premises. The main fauna that frequents them wear Bermuda shorts…

In municipalities where there is space and infrastructure to accommodate new real estate development, these green spaces should therefore be preserved.

The ecological restoration of these green spaces would allow the CMM to come closer to its objective of 17% protection of the territory by 2031, an objective set by the convention on biological biodiversity.

Is catering expensive? Jérôme Dupras, who pleads for his part in favor of the establishment of a Fund for the acquisition and restoration of old golf courses, recalls that Ottawa devotes considerable sums to the protection of natural heritage, which includes the requalification of ‘green spaces. Currently, Quebec does not receive its share of these generous sums. The CMM should go knock on the door of the Minister of the Environment, Steven Guilbeault…

That said, in municipalities that lack the space to accommodate new residents, and that have a disused golf course near existing infrastructure, another approach must be preferred.

Before encouraging real estate development on the outskirts — and thus promoting urban sprawl — cities should be able to transform their former golf course into an eco-district.

This is the position defended by the organization Vivre en ville, and it is very relevant. Attention ! We are not talking about wild development with monster house. Nor is it said that 15-storey condo towers should be erected. We are talking about medium-density eco-neighbourhoods (two or three floors) surrounded by green spaces, paths and community gardens open to the entire population, not just residents of the area. No question of developing closed communities like in the United States!

The requalification of golf courses is at the intersection of two crises: the climate crisis and the housing crisis. It would be inappropriate to adopt a single solution that would be imposed on all municipalities. Rather, a response must be found that is adapted to the needs of the different communities. In short, take the time to imagine the right project for the right golf course.