City plans slowed down by pandemic
Metro looks at plans and promises by the city that have been slowed down by the pandemic. It’s not surprising that everything from a new homeless census to the renovation of city hall has been touched in some way.
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Kate
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Joey 11:04 on 2021-03-12 Permalink
You can add the plan directeur for Jeanne-Mance Park, which has been coming soon for almost two years now.
Kate 11:44 on 2021-03-12 Permalink
That’s a hot potato, Joey, ever since Projet abolished the softball field. They’ve got to know that was a deeply unpopular move.
Joey 12:26 on 2021-03-12 Permalink
Agreed, but they (really Alex Norris) told everybody who asked that the consultations for the plan would allow for a discussion of the softball field… except he didn’t tell the consultants who announced at the wrap-up session that they had no mandate to look specifically at the softball field. Even though the field was the focal point of those consultations, there was no mention of it in their summary presentation. For comparison’s sake, they did have a call-out to the dog park advocates. Moreover, because the field had been destroyed just before their mandate began the “status quo” excluded the hundred-year history of that field. Talk about manufacturing consent. Anyway, the consultants submitted their report in August 2019, as far as I understand (a colleague was told that by one of them). The city was supposed to release a plan directeur soon thereafter. The announcement of the process indicated the plan would be adopted in 2019 (http://ville.montreal.qc.ca/portal/page?_pageid=7377,95273611&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL&id=20435&na=&ret=/pls/portal/url/page/grands_parcs_fr/rep_utilitaires/rep_actualites/coll_actualites), so they can’t even blame COVID-19 on the delay. Also, the city published the synthesis report of the first phase of the consultations, but not the second (the one described above), even though they showed the slides in public. Maybe Alex will one day explain to me why I’m wrong for expecting public documents to be made public.
Anyway, I asked Alex a few months ago what was taking so long and he said they hoped to have it out soon, which isn’t really an answer. Now this seems unlikely – in fact the most likely outcome at this point is more dithering by Projet meaning nothing will happen before an election. Given that there are no guarantees in politics I’m surprised they wouldn’t want to start implementing their vision for the park rather than risk Denis Coderre winning and inaugurating a brand new field and a dog park, but what do I know?
The dog park is another hot potato – keep in mind that Projet’s priority for the park seems to be no new fences of any kind, so I guess it’s easier to just keep deferring action on this stuff but (a) PM doesn’t seem to have a problem taking short-term unpopular decisions when they think they have a strong long-term vision (e.g., St.-Denis REV), (b) they’ve already pissed off all the people they’re going to piss of and (c) they’re supposed to be abvove primarily seeing things through an electoral lens.
Orr 16:35 on 2021-03-13 Permalink
Speaking of Jeanne-Mance park, wouldn’t those new tennis courts be a wonderful place for a winter skating rink? Beautiful view of Mont Royal and close to 1000s or people,
The existing little hockey rink at the other end of the park isn’t my idea of a family-friendly skating location.