Montreal City Weblog

Kate 21:51 on 2021-01-12 Permalink Reply  

• david244 23:30 on 2021-01-12 Permalink

  There’s no “row” of buildings proposed to be demolished under the typical understanding of that word, these are basically super low rise dumps of buildings, that will be replaced by much, much better structures and uses. There is, however, a huge drop in design quality, here’s what was initially proposed.

  Bummer. Especially because twin towers like this in Montreal are rarely successful, so that there’s a significant risk of even further value engineering, and/or delays.

  I seem to recall that we’ve already talked about the loss of L’escalier, which was one of my 30-50 favorite places in all the world. The rest though is well enough replaced.

• Kate 11:00 on 2021-01-13 Permalink

  This is the row of buildings. No, they are not architectural gems, but they are part of a vital urban landscape.

  It’s probably futile to argue with you – you’ve made it quite clear your urban ideal is endless rows of identical glass box highrises – the point that an interesting urban setting should involve buildings that are varied in height, style and age. Montreal used to do that kind of thing well, but the variation is disappearing.

  If everything has to be leased from the owner of a 20-storey glass box, a lot of commercial and cultural diversity is going to disappear.

  In any case, read the Metro piece. I don’t know how the planner is intending to openly flout city guidelines for a minimum of social housing, but they are.

• Ephraim 11:57 on 2021-01-13 Permalink

  The block with the McDonald’s is new non-descript and basically could be replaced by Lego. The other block isn’t that interesting, if you ask me. And the place where the Amir was was purpose-built and no one knows what to do with that square of glass. (Not to mention energy inefficient.)

  The city should negotiate the ownership of a few condos in exchange for this and then use the condos as social housing. The city should also require condo towers like that to be LEED certified and use geothermal heating. It’s time we set higher requirements on new builds. There should be a requirement to have wiring for 220V electrical in a garage for car charging. And that owners will be considered as if they have one parking permit for the city, and therefore be charged the rate of the second permit.

  I understand what you are saying Kate, but there these aren’t really worth chaining ourselves to the tree for. We definitely need higher buildings to increase city density. That being said, it’s time we have higher requirements for them… make the developers create more efficient buildings. And if we can’t get them to build social housing, then find new ways. For example, create a new classification category for buildings without social housing that have more than 10 units that charges them 20% more property tax. New buildings that are not LEED certified, that charges them more property tax. Make it hurt in the pocketbooks when they tell people they are going to be paying forever for their misdeeds. Put language into the grants that excludes them because of these choices.

• Alison Cummins 12:46 on 2021-01-13 Permalink

  I haven’t been following along. What does it mean to say we need higher buildings to increase density? The plateau is the densest borough in Canada.

  We need buildings with elevators and malls to improve accessibility, Place du Parc style. People eventually age out of their top-floor triplex apartments and need somewhere to live that doesn’t involve icy staircases. Our traditional housing stock is absolutely terrible for wheelchairs.

  But our traditional housing stock is absolutely terrific for building somewhat mixed communities with enough density to support local businesses. It’s great for living close enough to your friends that you can walk or bike over to see them, or (these days) meet at the dog park.

  Our density is just fine without towers. They serve an important function but density isn’t it.

  Or am I missing something?

• Ephraim 12:57 on 2021-01-13 Permalink

  There was a lot of discussion about density. The government is supposed to be protecting our green belt, which means we should be growing upward rather than outward in the burbs.

  But we definitely need more accessibility.

• Alison Cummins 13:05 on 2021-01-13 Permalink

  Ephraim, I am in full agreement. We need density.

  I question whether towers are a necessary or desirable means to that end. The plateau has few towers but great density.

• dwgs 13:09 on 2021-01-13 Permalink

  If the goal is maximum density then towers are the answer. If the goal is having a human scaled livable neighbourhood towers are a non starter.

• Bill Binns 13:51 on 2021-01-13 Permalink

  Build build build! Hopefully they will build a playground in Berri Square for all the families that move in across the street. A few hundred nervous, cop calling moms is just the medicine this neighborhood needs.

  Those two zombie restaurants will be no great loss. I’ve lived here for 5 years and do not believe I have ever seen a customer enter or exit either one. There is some kind of a magazine store on the same block with about the same amount of activity. I can’t imagine how these places make their rent.

  Now if they will just do something with the old rat infested bus station.

• Alison Cummins 13:51 on 2021-01-13 Permalink

  Towers were imagined as the answer in the 1920s. People would live in towers in parks. Utopia was everyone living in Nun’s Island.

  Nun’s Island is not Canada’s densest neighbourhood. Also, everyone needs a car. If you want to combine density with towers you need to take away the parks and cars. You get what Americans call The Projects. (And what Canadians call Jane And Finch?)

  Then the people with money leave to live in low-density neighbourhoods and we’re worse off than when we started.

  There are lots of ways to promote densification that don’t involve adding towers to high-density neighbourhoods.

  A typical evolution of a city involves lower middle class people building homes on the cheap land at the outskirts. As the city grows, that land grows in value. The houses are not necessarily in great shape, so developers buy the land and rebuild.

  Sometimes they’ll split the lots and replace a small bungalow with a semi-detached 3.5-storey building. Density increases! Sometimes they build a McMansion sprawling over the entire thing. No change in density; bad for community (no room for a backyard skating rink); and unsuited to expected long-term changes including rising prices of heating fuel.

  Zoning can encourage the former and forbid the latter.

  Granny flats can be encouraged with loans, grants and flexible zoning committees. Garages can be converted to apartments. Neighbourhoods become denser over time and detached single-family homes become the exception. Tax revenue goes up. Transit can improve. There is no need to negotiate with large developers so corruption is less of a temptation. These neighbourhoods typically also have large apartment buildings on the other side of a highway as well, so the area becomes more mixed and integrated.

  There are lots of ways to get more people living happily together in currently low-density neighbourhoods and sparing our remaining agricultural land.

• DeWolf 13:53 on 2021-01-13 Permalink

  I personally think it’s a shame that the block in front of the square is being demolished because, although some seem rather dismissive, those buildings do have architectural and heritage value. There’s no reason a tower can’t be built in parking lot behind them instead. The McDonald’s block, on the other hand, looks like it was always meant to be temporary. No redeeming value.

  Alison, it’s a bit of a myth that the Plateau is the densest part of Canada. It’s not even the densest neighbourhood in Montreal. Shaughnessy Village and Park Extension are both denser. You can actually see the density of each census tract in Canada at censusmapper.ca, which is a great way to visualize all sorts of census data.

  I agree that the Plateau strikes an almost perfect balance between liveability and density. I think we should be densifying on-island suburbs by replacing single-family houses with triplexes instead of creating Toronto-style pockets of towers with low-density sprawl in between. That’s the gentle density approach you’re arguing for. But downtown is another story. It has always been dense and it has had tall buildings, including tall residential buildings, for 100 years. There’s no reason why development downtown should be restricted to triplexes and small buildings.

  Besides, the two towers being proposed here are not especially large or tall. 15 storeys is barely a high-rise. It’s shorter than Place Dupuis next door and not much taller than the Archambault building that has been around for a century.

• DeWolf 14:03 on 2021-01-13 Permalink

  I also feel like it should be pointed out that, while plexes form a baseline density for the Plateau, its main characteristic is the diversity of its built form. Beyond plexes, there are also a lot of large buildings, from the big apartment blocks on Park Avenue to the giant industrial buildings in Mile End, old industrial buildings on St-Laurent and of course the high-rises next to Lafontaine Park. People always seem to discount these big buildings, but without them the Plateau wouldn’t be the Plateau, it would be Verdun or Hochelaga or Villeray.

• Alison Cummins 14:16 on 2021-01-13 Permalink

  What I might see for that area is not condo towers but medium-rise dorm-style rental units over commercial space to make life easy for single people, odd couples and young families while taking into account the wide range of neighbourhood third-spaces.

  By dorm-style I mean that some facilities are shared in a way that promotes community. Apartments are tiny; each floor has its own laundry facilities and lounge area; there are communal eating spots, meeting rooms and party rooms; there’s gym equipment but probably not a pool; theres’s a deck on the roof. No garage space, period. (Is the word micro-apartment or something?) There are a lot of people who would pay good rent for that if it was nice. I definitely would, if I were single.

  Airbnb actively policed and forbidden.

  Condo builds are popular with developers because financing is easier, but selling the building or repurposing space is hell. They aren’t suitable for people who aren’t into home maintenance. They take up more space because everyone needs their own stuff, and condo-owners want parking.

• Ephraim 14:20 on 2021-01-13 Permalink

  Just to mention it, these buildings aren’t in the Plateau, but Ville-Marie. I’ve lived not far from here… it can use more day time traffic, offices, to bring in day time business.

  As for that magazine store… my only memory is of a cashier giving me back change as if I paid with a $10 when I paid with a $20 and the manager refusing to do a cash count… giving them enough time to pocket the money. I never did walk back in.

  I’d like to see AirBnB actively policed anywhere in Montreal. Revenu Quebec is NOT doing their job.

  I’d like to see better requirements on such buildings, that’s why I want them LEED certified with geothermal heating/cooling.

  I don’t think these will attract families, but rather will attract older people who want easy access to the metro, groceries, pharmacy, etc. They will also use the park.

• Tim S. 14:40 on 2021-01-13 Permalink

  As far as the triplex vs high-rise question, I think it was in Jan Gehl’s Cities for People that he said 6 stories was a happy medium between density and human-scale neighbourhoods. They would be big enough to have elevators for accessibility, but a person on a 6th floor balcony can (just barely) be considered part of street life.

• DeWolf 14:48 on 2021-01-13 Permalink

  Alison, I think what you’re describing can be described either as micro-flats or co-living, depending on just how many facilities are shared between residents.

  This particular project is not condos, though, it’s rental apartments.

• Alison Cummins 15:05 on 2021-01-13 Permalink

  Thanks, DeWolf. I knew I hadn’t invented it, I’m just not up to date on the terminology. I obviously hadn’t read the article since I thought it was condos. Will fix that now.

  I enjoyed dorm life. I needed to get out of it for my own sanity—conflicts with roomies (two people shared one room back then, bathrooms were communal for the floor)—eww shared kitchens—but moving into a Pointe-Claire low-rise with a roommate was not the answer.

  Today I love being a landlord and living where I do, but I live with a determinedly handy partner with excellent taste and a driver’s license. It used to be more awkward with half-solutions, though I still liked it.

  If I lived alone I’d want to pare down and let someone else look after the infrastructure. I’d want both privacy and the opportunity to build friendships. I can’t be the only one.

• Alison Cummins 15:10 on 2021-01-13 Permalink

  Tim S., I thought it was Jane Jacobs? But I think she said a range between 3 and (max) 6.

• Ephraim 16:35 on 2021-01-13 Permalink

  Alison, my dorms were 10 rooms to a floor, 2 people to a room. 3 toilets and 3 showers for the floor. And the kitchen had 1 fridge with 5 doors, so we all got half a shelf. And there were 4 burners for cooking. No microwave, no oven. I eventually graduated to the fancy doors. 2 to a room, 6 to an apartment, 2 toilets, 2 showers. LUXURY!

• Alison Cummins 17:17 on 2021-01-13 Permalink

  Ephraim,

  My grandfather was raised in the Great Depression by a single father who worked-from-home rolling cigars so he could look after his small boys. All my great-grandfather could afford on that pittance was a horrible garret, stuffy in the summer, frosty in Saskatchewan’s winters. I’m pretty sure horrible garrets don’t come with their own bathrooms.

  When my grandfather finally left home to earn his PhD in Wisconsin, he shared a single room in a rooming house with another grad student. LUXURY. There was even a bathroom on the same floor!

  (Once he’d completed his PhD, he went to work at the Rothamstead research centre in England where my grandmother immediately developed a crush on the dashing new researcher with jazzy american socks. That would have been about 1942. I never asked my grandmother about the socks her British colleagues were wearing; possibly home-knit and patched, or re-knit, or even none at all.)

  What was that book about a Chinese-American family — came out in the 1980s — where the grandmother has studied as a midwife in China. She shared her dorm room with five other women. It had three bunkbeds and two dressers with three drawers each. She thought she was in heaven. All that privacy! A whole bed to herself! Her own drawer for her clothes!

  Luxury is relative.

• Tim S. 18:56 on 2021-01-13 Permalink

  Oh, likely Jane Jacobs had similar ideas. I haven’t read all her stuff. But Gehl’s book has all kinds of diagrams showing what kind of interaction is possible from different heights and so on, and for non-specialist me it explained a lot about things I had instinctively liked without knowing why.

• su 11:46 on 2021-01-14 Permalink

  “Ils ne veulent pas que le règlement pour une métropole mixte s’applique, donc ils essaient de la passer en toute vitesse», analyse le coordonnateur du Comité logement Ville-Marie, Éric Michaud”
  Ah yes. PMs 20 20 20 bylaw was put on hold due to COVID .It was supposed to kick in on Jan.1st 2021.

• su 12:34 on 2021-01-14 Permalink

  Ephraim
  I know there has been alot of discussion about protecting our black earth green belt, but I am not sure what concrete policies have been put in place. Hudson, St Lazare, Chateauguay, Laval, Lachute, Brossard, have all been subject to massive rezoning of agricultural land in the recent decade I get the impression that rezoning is up to local councils.
  Do you ( or anyone else) know if there is any level of government charged with recording agrictural land loss in a rigorous and detailed manner?

• Alison Cummins 14:42 on 2021-01-14 Permalink

  I don’t know who is saying the building across from Parc Émilie-Gamelin is not that tall. It’s way too big for a building across the street from a park. It blocks the sky.

  If I were queen of the world I’d tell them they could make the east building taller on condition they made the park building a lot shorter.