Hampstead tenants send mayor a lawyer’s letter
In a last-ditch attempt to save their homes, tenants of those Hampstead apartment blocks have served Mayor Steinberg with a lawyer’s letter alleging his veto was invalid.
I’ve seen allegations that a cousin of that mayor’s is one of the condo developers, but nothing to back that up. Even if true, I’m not sure such a conflict of interest carries any legal consequences.
Michael Black 20:47 on 2019-08-08 Permalink
I read somewhere, maybe the Suburban, that the cousin is a fourth cousin, dismissed as “barely a relative”.
I thiught the cousin had a lesser role, like maybe an architect, but can’t remember. Steinberg did say the firm had done a previous project that worked out well.
Apparently Hampstead has little space to grow, and thus little chance to raise income, whie they need to do sone upgrade of various municipal projects.
That in itself doesn’t seem too outrageous, except this project affects the lower income part of their population.
Michael
Kate 07:20 on 2019-08-09 Permalink
Michael Black, maybe I’m too much of a practical socialist, but if people in Hampstead want nicer municipal facilities, maybe they should realize they need to bite the bullet and accept higher taxes?
dwgs 08:55 on 2019-08-09 Permalink
Them that’s got shall get, them that’s not shall lose.
Blork 10:29 on 2019-08-09 Permalink
The challenge isn’t based on conflict of interest. The challenge says that the vote to approve the condo project — in which council rejected the motion to approve but the mayor vetoed the rejection — was not valid. This is based on the rule that says a mayor can veto a motion that has been APPROVED (thereby rejecting it) but they cannot veto a motion that has been REJECTED (thereby approving it).
Yes, there are a lot of double negatives and turnarounds there, but the gist is that the mayor does not have the right to veto a rejection. But that’s what he did in the vote in July. So according to the letter served to the mayor, the condo project has not been legally approved.
Ephraim 12:27 on 2019-08-09 Permalink
Kate – Hampstead has one of the highest tax rates in all of the city. Average property tax is $12K. But the point here is that… we aren’t citizens of Hampstead, we don’t control their zoning, etc. I’ve seen some of the zoning conflicts in Hampstead… a city where people buy small houses on large plots to knock down, even if they are over $1 Million dollars, because there is just no land left in Hampstead.
Montreal is getting there. The land under our feet is rising in value faster than the buildings. The whole thing about knocking down 12-5s in Rosemount is all about the lack of space and wanting to build more densely.
And before anyone tries to put words into my mouth… I didn’t say that I agree with EITHER side. I don’t have any point of view in this concern at all. I’m just pointing out the fact that we are going to see more and more of this…. Hampstead has been like this for 20 years. That no one has noticed, is amazing. It’s already here in Cote-St-Luc, Montreal-West, and TMR and you will continue to see more and more of it over time. Meanwhile, people don’t want them to build more suburbs and expand into the greenbelt… where do you think this new housing is going to come from?
jeather 12:34 on 2019-08-09 Permalink
Knocking down a regular sized house to build a giant house is not increasing housing — both will hold one family. Knocking down an apartment building for condos is probably not increasing housing either.
Patrick 15:21 on 2019-08-09 Permalink
@Ephraim, isn’t the immediate issue for Hampstead more about municipal revenue than expanding housing (not that this isn’t a problem in general)? And am I right that Hampstead has no commercial tax base to speak of? Maybe the problem is that you can no longer have an economically self-sufficient bedroom community “free” of stores and other businesses. Hampstead wants to improve facilities for the people it has more than it wants to have new people.
Kate 10:24 on 2019-08-10 Permalink
Hampstead has no commercial tax base – I don’t think there’s so much as a dépanneur within its borders. For services, it relies completely on having Montreal wrapped around 3 sides and Côte St-Luc on the fourth. Whoever founded that town took entirely the wrong lessons from Westmount because, as we see, it has limited its tax take, and is now trying to increase it on the backs of the people who can least cope with it. As dwgs said above (or sang).
Blork, I know the challenge isn’t based on conflict of interest, sorry if my terse writing seemed to compact the ideas together.