To each his own roof | Densification is the key

This summer, the editorial team of The Press offers you a series of texts on urban densification as the key to overcoming the housing crisis, a widespread issue throughout Quebec that will certainly be at the heart of the next election campaign. Here is the first editorial in this series, which you can then read on Mondays in the Debates section.

At a time when we must bet on urban densification, Pointe-Claire offers a sad example of a construction project that should not have been brushed aside.

After all, the residential rental tower building looming next to the Cadillac Fairview Mall has a lot going for it.

First, the project is led by Cadillac Fairview, a serious promoter established in the community for decades.

Then, its phase 1 is located on an underused parking lot which constitutes a heat island to be fought, not a natural environment to be protected. And the three 20 to 25-storey buildings would be erected along Highway 40, not in the middle of a residential area.

Above all, the site is glued to a future station of the Metropolitan Express Network (REM), a structuring mode of public transport whose development must necessarily go hand in hand with a densification plan, as elsewhere in the world.

The citizen’s objection therefore makes no sense… but it is not so surprising, insofar as the Caisse rolled out the REM without worrying about its anchoring in the community, an error that should not be repeated.

But back to the project.

Of course, nothing is perfect. But everything is negotiated, improves. Except that the new mayor of Pointe-Claire does not want to hear anything. After rejecting the project in February, which resulted in a lawsuit, he submitted no other vision for urban development.

Densification? Not in his backyard!

So much the worse for tenants who are struggling to find reasonably priced accommodation on this traditional weekend of moves from 1^er July.

Too bad for young people who no longer dare to dream of their first home, while prices have exploded by 60% in the metropolitan area with the pandemic.

Considering the recent rise in interest rates, homes have never been so cheap in a generation, RBC has just calculated. Eventually, services and the economy of cities will suffer if families can no longer afford to settle there.

If the prices are in the ceiling, it is that there is a lack of houses, because the construction has not followed the demography for 20 years. So that everyone has a roof, it is necessary to build. And not just a little.

By 2030, the number of housing units in Quebec must be increased by 14%. To achieve this, we must double the pace of housing starts and build 620,000 units, according to a study by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation¹.

The challenge is colossal. But that’s no reason to build just anywhere and anyhow.

Urban sprawl is not the way of the future from an environmental point of view (we can no longer bet on solo cars with the climate emergency), financial (this requires the construction of infrastructures that already exist in town) and human (hours of commuting, it wears out a small family).

This is why the solution to the housing crisis requires the densification of cities. Everyone agrees on that… except some residents who don’t want their neighborhood to change.

It is through transparency, education and real consultation that we will succeed in convincing them that they too can benefit from it. Not just figuratively. Because let’s not forget that the addition of housing can broaden the tax base of a city, thus limiting the increase in property taxes for residents, which risks being salted with galloping inflation.

We will also convince residents by relying on reasonable and reasoned densification projects. Not dull gray towers. But real living environments integrating green spaces, local shops, places where children and teenagers can meet.

The revitalization of Vieux-Pointe-aux-Trembles by the Société de développement Angus is a good example of a project adapted to the needs of the community that should improve the quality of life and the environment of the neighborhood as well as residential diversity. The six-storey buildings will house restaurants and cafes, condos and affordable rental housing, and even a community DIY workshop. Bonus green lane.

All of this convinced the population, the borough and even the provincial government, which is extending funding. However, after years of reflection, the project was given an unfavorable opinion by a committee of the city center: too dense for its taste!

Please, there needs to be better harmonization between the different levels of government in real estate. We must reduce the bureaucracy and regulatory pitfalls that cause projects to move at a snail’s pace.

Cities must adopt a timetable with quantified targets for the number of units to be built to respond to the housing crisis. They must draw up a clear urban plan with precise parameters to prevent developers from navigating in the dark.

But, fearing the reaction of the citizens, the elected officials prefer to let the promoters put their heads on the block and present a project that they can always block if the population cringes.

Like in Pointe-Claire.

We have to drop every man for himself, if we want everyone to have a place to live.