Montreal City Weblog

Kate 21:22 on 2020-03-08 Permalink Reply  

• david100 02:20 on 2020-03-09 Permalink

  I agree – it should be at least as tall as the 10 story building on the same block that was build in the 1930s.

• Kate 06:51 on 2020-03-09 Permalink

  There is no ten-storey building on that block, david100.

  The Main is, in any case, too narrow to support the presence of the high rise buildings you champion. It should not be turned into a dark canyon.

• Faiz imam 09:16 on 2020-03-09 Permalink

  A rule of thumb for dense midrise is for the height to equal the width of the street. Not to mention keeping the same line as the surrounding buildings.

  In this case that means 3ish storeys max.

  But it looks like the top two floors are set back quite a bit, which is the right way to add additional height without “crowding” the street.

• Blork 10:25 on 2020-03-09 Permalink

  I’d normally be against this too but if you look at the illustrations the facades of the buildings are the same height and pretty much the same overall scale and dimensions as the adjoining buildings, but with an one inset level at the top that you don’t even see from the street. This sounds like typical “be against anything new”ism to me.

  Also notable in the illustrations: they gave Ripples a do-over. I doubt that’s part of the actual plan, but it looks pretty slick in the illustration. (Although I prefer the lopsided original.)

• Blork 10:32 on 2020-03-09 Permalink

  …in fact, on second look this looks like a project designed directly by the Jane Jacobs fan club. The scale matches the surroundings, it adds more density than it appears to (because of the inset top level), and it creates a small gathering space because one of the two structures is set back from the street about 20 metres, creating a nice little shaded nook where you can sit and enjoy your Ripples ice cream.

• CE 14:23 on 2020-03-09 Permalink

  Like the complaints against the infill development on St-Paul, this kind of NIMBYism causes people and politicians to dismiss all complaints around new developments, even when warranted. If people should be complaining about anything, it’s how dismally boring these new buildings tend to be.

  Concerning height, even if the building were four or five storeys at street-level, St-Laurent has lots of other buildings that height which nobody blinks an eye at (and, IMO, make the street more interesting while adding some density).

  Here are few more examples: 1, 2, 3

• david100000 03:08 on 2020-03-10 Permalink

  The 10 story building – linked by CE if you turn around – has been there longer than any of us. What’s new is the idea that “3ish storeys max” is in any way normal.

  The “3ish storeys max” was the low cost technological solution of the era.

  The “3ish storeys max” is the slogan we should put on posters when we march against the affordable housing crisis.

• david100000 03:18 on 2020-03-10 Permalink

  And I’d just like to add that Faiz Imam’s “rule of thumb” is violated by every city in Europe, even the bombed out and reconstructed ones, none of which can be said to be anything but great.

  The ultra low rise quality of Canada is attractive to some, maybe many, particularly new arrivals. But the “3ish storeys max” planning is actually leading to *decreasing* density on the Plateau, as your “rules of thumb” keep well-needed lower cost half wood-framed housing units from being constructed in the neighborhoods, and force people people instead into competition for the existing housing stock (gentrification) or new construction.

  Brilliant plan, all hail the “3ish storeys max” city planning ethos. Just don’t call it the Montreal, because when the cost of housing goes up, the culture is the first thing to go.

• Ian 10:58 on 2020-03-10 Permalink

  There are illegal AirBnbs on every block in the Plateau and you are blaming the housing crunch on not having 10-story apartment blocks? Let’s just look at some of the residential areas in the core where there are lots of highrises… Habitations Jeanne-Mance… Parc Ex… These are vertical slums. I know we have had this conversation many times, but since you keep rolling out the same old tropes…

  As they say, to a hammer every problem looks like a nail.

• david1000 11:04 on 2020-03-10 Permalink

  We need “vertical slums”! A “vertical slum” is a place where people can live affordably!

  Habitations Jeanne Mance should have been rebuilt years ago, it was an egregious error. But not because of the height of the buildings, rather, because of the ‘tower in the park,’ every-unit-needs-a-surface-parking-space suburbanism of the place. That part of Montreal should look like Wan Chai, not Coal Harbour.

• Ian 11:18 on 2020-03-10 Permalink

  So… you want the Main to look like Acadie. Gotcha. I question your urban planning vision.

  Midrise apartment blocks I could see, but I suspect your notion of highrise apartments lining every street is not going to encourage the kind of culture you seem to think it will somehow preserve.

  Personally I suspect that if we actually enforced any of the AirBnB zoning laws a lot of the housing problems we see in the Plateau would not-so-mysteriously vanish overnight. Then we can start going after people converting duplexes into single family dwellings & rental stock condo conversions.

• Faiz imam 13:57 on 2020-03-10 Permalink

  Jeez david, I feel like I triggered you badly.

  I’m actually wrong with my “3ish storeys max”

  I just checked. St Laurent is 18m wide. That means buildings can be 5 storey-ish, not 3.

  Suffice to say, I largely agree with your points.

• CE 14:44 on 2020-03-10 Permalink

  High rises in Parc Ex? There’s only one building (Acadie and St-Roch) that could be called a high rise and three others that are mid rise. I’m looking at two of them right now out my window and those are two of the nicer buildings in the neighbourhood from what I’ve heard. Certainly most of the views must be amazing.

• Tee Owe 14:59 on 2020-03-10 Permalink

  The trick is to live in the building you don’t want to look at

• Ian 15:38 on 2020-03-10 Permalink

  @Tee Owe that’s a good trick.

  @CE I mean the Acadie strip – I guess we need a clearer definition of mid-rise vs highrise. In NYC a highrise is 75 feet or taller, so roughly 23 meters. What is your definition, or more appropriately, the definition according to Montreal zoning laws? No offense to your neighbourhood, but on that strip even “nice” buildings are not what I would like to see imposed on the urban planning template for the Main.

  To be fair, I only drive on Acadie, I haven’t been checking the exact height of those apartment buildings – but there’s a bunch of them that look like highrises to me. For the sake of argument we could also talk about the tall building zone in Ahuntsic, out by the Decarie Trench, any of the several clusters in VSL, or whatever – not exactly cultural gems. By david100000’s arguments these should be affordable paradisical urban neighbourhoods rich in cachet.

• CE 16:48 on 2020-03-10 Permalink

  Most of the buildings along Acadie are 3½ storeys tall. The only one that I think could be called a high rise (in the context of Montreal) is Le Rockview at the corner of St-Roch which is 16 storeys tall. There are some that I would call mid rise such as at Olgilvy (11 storeys), d’Anvers (8 storeys), and Liege (8 storeys). That’s it, the rest are between 2½ storeys maxing out at 5½ with the majority being 4½. This is a pretty typical of what you would find there.

  I actually think the density on Acadie is pretty good, the issue is that many of the buildings aren’t kept up very well because Acadie is such a miserable street and it being the border with TMR means there are very few services around. However, to call the high rises “slums” is inaccurate as they’re among the nicest buildings along that stretch. They also work well in the context as it’s a wide street. They’d be pretty out of place on a normal residential street or even St-Laurent.

• CE 16:52 on 2020-03-10 Permalink

  That said, Liege is a pretty narrow street (narrower than St-Laurent) and this 9 storey mid rise works pretty well there.

• Ian 13:13 on 2020-03-11 Permalink

  I admit I am exaggerating when I call them slums, but I am sure we can agree that Acadie does not have anything resembling street level culture, either, though it is convenient to the very lively Jean-Talon strip… which is mostly lowrise.