This text is part of the special Greater Montreal booklet
The revision of the Greater Montreal Metropolitan Land Use and Development Plan (PMAD) should enable the 82 municipalities of the greater Montreal region to set targets for achieving a more sustainable occupation of their territory. On the menu, denser residential areas, but also more diversified and more user-friendly for residents.
The faster-than-expected densification of the population around major public transport infrastructures, in TOD neighborhoods (for Transit-Oriented Development or development oriented towards public transport, in French), is giving impetus to the elected officials of the Metropolitan Community of Montreal (MMC). Now that the target of concentrating 40% of household growth near metro and REM stations, as well as rapid bus networks, has been reached, elected officials in the greater Montreal region are stepping on the accelerator. Thus, 60% of the population growth expected by 2031 will have to be concentrated there, and this target could be raised as part of the revision of the PMAD. “We are very ambitious,” recognizes Guillaume Tremblay, mayor of Mascouche. “The last PMAD, which entered into force in 2012, already included ambitious objectives, adds the elected official, who is part of the plan’s review committee. But we have demonstrated, the 82 cities together, that we are capable of achieving such objectives. »
Create living environments
One of the objectives guiding the revision of the PMAD is to create dense living environments that make it possible to accelerate the ecological transition. “We don’t want to densify the urban fabric simply to densify it,” says Philippe Rivet, Housing and Monitoring team leader at the CMM. “We want to encourage thoughtful densification, in the sense that we want to create complete living environments, characterized by a mix of activities and uses, to allow people to live and work there while having access to a maximum of active or public transportation services,” explains the official. “That means green spaces, pedestrian accessibility, bike paths, public transit, schools and cultural infrastructure,” adds the mayor of Mascouche, who points out that it will take the cooperation of the 82 municipalities in the territory for the plan works.
The consensus between the municipalities of Greater Montreal seems all the more important since barely 35% of the housing units in the territory have good pedestrian accessibility to businesses and services. Outside the city of Montreal, this proportion drops dramatically.
Build in height
The demand for housing will also increase significantly over the next few years. According to CMM estimates, 460,000 new housing units will have to be built on the territory of Greater Montreal to ensure greater housing affordability by 2030, added the mayor of Mascouche.
According to Philippe Rivet, the municipalities of the territory have the space necessary to integrate all these new dwellings, without having to extend and encroach on agricultural land. “With our partners, we identified vacant spaces and areas to be redeveloped throughout the territory. What we see, especially in TOD areas, is that there is enough space to accommodate growth, but that requires setting ambitious densification targets,” he says.
To achieve this, it will therefore be necessary to build in height and to be creative, affirms Guillaume Tremblay. “We are no longer in the era of the bungalow, where we built 20 homes per hectare. We are more in the 100, 150, 200 dwellings per hectare, underlines the elected official. It is clear that these houses will have to be built vertically, not horizontally. »
Many spaces have strong potential for densification and would make it possible to create complete living environments, says Philippe Rivet. “This is the case of shopping centers, in particular. Many are near public transit, he notes. Their spaces are often underutilized, and they offer opportunities for intelligent densification that cannot be passed up. »
Social mix and affordable housing
Among the challenges awaiting the municipalities of Greater Montreal, those of social diversity and the construction of affordable housing stand out. We need more social housing to help the most disadvantaged households, argues Richard Ryan, expert housing consultant and city councilor for the City of Montreal for 12 years, but also housing that middle-class citizens will be able to afford. dwell.
“We see that 60% of households on the island of Montreal cannot afford housing right now without eating away more than 30% of their gross income,” he notes. In very concrete terms, explains the housing expert, a household with an annual income of $100,000 to $110,000 cannot find housing without having to touch other budget items.
As if to confirm the magnitude of the challenge awaiting elected officials, the share of social and community housing in the total available stock has decreased in the region in recent years. And one tenant household in seven (14%) in Greater Montreal also shows urgent housing needs.
For Richard Ryan, part of the solution to the housing problem involves NPOs and cooperatives, such as Interloge, which currently owns more than 800 units. “These are apartments that are rented well below the current price,” says the expert. Philippe Rivet adds that the CMM, as part of its Metropolitan Housing Policy adopted in 2022, announced that it wanted to integrate social and affordable housing targets as part of the PMAD review.
Smart development
For all these good intentions to overflow from the Island of Montreal, adds the mayor of Mascouche, the municipalities of the entire territory will have to be able to count on a truly structuring public transit network. “We are going to contribute to urban densification, assures Guillaume Tremblay, but in return, it will take major investments from the Government of Quebec to allow our residents to no longer have two or three cars in their yard, but to to have one and to be able to rely on efficient public transit. »
Mayor Tremblay speaks knowingly. The train service that connects his municipality to downtown Montreal has many weaknesses, according to him. “For the moment, the train has four departures in the morning and four in the evening. It makes no, no, no sense,” he maintains, while adding that the REM development work has hurt public transit enthusiasts. “Because of the modified tunnel with the arrival of the REM, our train no longer goes directly to the city centre. You have to take a nasty detour. It takes us 1 hour 45 minutes to get to the city center by train. It encourages people to take their car, ”observes the mayor.
“Intelligent thinking about development means saying that development is based on the quality of life. We think about noise, travel and the use of spaces in the streets that we are going to develop,” says Nadine Viau, Mayor of Beloeil, whose municipality is currently planning the development of the last residential lots available in its territory.
“We called on the architectural firm of Pierre Thibault [l’un des fondateurs de Lab-École], explains the chosen one. We want to create spaces that have never been considered in the urban plans in Beloeil until now. We plan to integrate, for example, visual breakthroughs, as much towards the fields as towards the agricultural areas, the sunsets and the mountains, ”says the mayor.
What is a TOD?
This special content was produced by the Special Publications team of the Duty, pertaining to marketing. The drafting of Duty did not take part.