A wind of citizen opposition is blowing over the conversion of a former industrial wasteland in Quebec. The critics of the InnoVitam innovation zone denounce a project developed without consultation and which threatens, according to them, to deliver their neighborhood into food for gentrification.
Underprivileged, Maizerets is a district still scarred by its industrial past. The sector is doing poorly economically. In 2015, the average gross income was barely above $30,000, $14,000 less than in the rest of the capital.
The south of the neighborhood borders the St. Lawrence, but has several contaminated vacant lots — and unsuitable for residential construction, according to the City.
A non-profit organization, the Table citoyenne Littoral Est, would like to grow an urban forest, social housing and a self-managed social center in this urban desert. She sees it as an opportunity to ensure real access to the river for the local population, who already lives wedged between two highways, a railway line and heavy industries.
The City of Quebec has another dream: that of establishing an innovation zone on the 15 lots coveted by the NPO. It was the former administration of Régis Labeaume who first suggested this vocation, inspired by the “Saint-Laurent Project” developed by François Legault in 2013 and which proposes to bring industries of the future to the shores of the river.
By 2035, the planned innovation zone must become “a world-class crossroads”, a true “generator of synergy”, built according to the most promising principles of “winter design”, according to the presentation document produced by the City in 2020. The dossier uses business school slang: the words “innovation”, “technology” and “sustainability” appear 901 times over the 194 pages. The word “mixed” appears only three times.
“Luxury rental apartments have already started to appear in Maizerets,” laments Marie-Hélène Deshaies, listing a flowering of new residential complexes that offer 4 and a half apartments at $1,350 or even $1,400 per month. “The number of appeals for eviction or renoviction cases has increased exponentially in recent years,” she continues. Le BAIL, an organization for the defense of tenants, reports having seen calls for help from Maizerets multiply by “six or seven”.
Diversity
The town hall, under Bruno Marchand, stays the course. In a scrum on Monday, he argued that the innovation zone will be worth the effort for people in the sector. “Social diversity must go both ways. We are going to add greenery, we are going to decontaminate land. For people who already live in the neighborhood, there are a lot of gains, ”insists the elected official.
Acquiring and rehabilitating the 15 lots, according to the City’s estimate, will cost some $109 million. The Government of Quebec has already disbursed nearly half of the amount to develop part of the 430,000 m2 of land.
For Marie-Hélène Deshaies, of the Table citoyenne Littoral Est, these injections of public funds will mainly serve to fuel private interests. She deplores the lack of openness of the City, which refuses any debate on the vocation of the land.
The Marchand administration denied turning a deaf ear to the grievances of the population. He maintains that the citizens of Maizerets will have the opportunity to be heard as part of the Canardière vision, a major reflection on the development of the neighborhood located north of the projected innovation zone. “The decontaminated land is for the innovation zone” and the significant government windfall that it promises to trickle down to the City, he decides. “Afterwards, the Canardière vision will encompass much more than that. »
The number of appeals for eviction or renoviction cases has increased exponentially in recent years
The Table citoyenne Littoral Est, for its part, believes that the destiny of the district is intimately linked to the innovation zone. “It’s not the Vatican,” argues Marie-Hélène Deshaies. “The innovation zone is not a territory detached from the rest: what will be built there will have an impact on all of Maizerets. »
Baptized InnoVitam, this zone aims to be “a contraction of innovation and vitamin which means “life” in Latin”. According to its promoters, “the name wants to express the idea that humans grow through innovation”. Its opponents, on the other hand, believe that the “everything-to-the-company” that would dictate the development of the sector means exactly the opposite.
“An innovation zone is not a district”, concludes Mme Deshaies. “If InnoVitam sees the light of day, it will rather sign the death warrant of our living environment. »