Montpetit on “the new Coderre”
Jonathan Montpetit has a good piece on “the new Denis Coderre” that leaves a strong sense that, while the erstwhile mayor wants us to think he has changed, he has not. But it also feels like Montpetit could have written a much longer and more detailed piece on this topic had the CBC platform allowed.
John B 08:55 on 2021-03-31 Permalink
> Coderre is sharply critical of how the current administration has often built bike paths over the objections of motorists and business owners.
How many business owners are really critical though? I live on the Verdun bike path and there are maybe 5 businesses that have been sharply critical. On Wellington there were two or three businesses that I remember hearing had trouble with the pietonnisation last year, and they had legitimate issues that the borough should have tried to work around.
I talked to a business owner on St-Denis back in the fall and it seems like it was similar there, some businesses strongly wanting the bike path, many quietly wanting it, and a few screaming that it was the end of the world.
Does Coderre want to govern for the screaming minority?
Joey 09:27 on 2021-03-31 Permalink
Agreed that new Coderre is the same as the old Coderre – his ideology seems to consist of one thing only: advancing Denis Coderre. If he could make ‘being in favour of bike paths’ a wedge issue to promote his campaign, he’d do it in a heartbeat.
Chris 09:41 on 2021-03-31 Permalink
It amazes me that cycling, with a mode share of about 5%, manages to provide such outsized fodder for political fights.
Jack 10:25 on 2021-03-31 Permalink
Its people’s attachment to their cars, they love them. If anything is done to challenge the rights of a cars free and unfettered right to all public space, folks get cross.
DeWolf 11:09 on 2021-03-31 Permalink
From the article: “He believes he lost the 2017 mayoral election to Valérie Plante not because Montrealers sided with her vision for the city’s future but because the election was ‘a referendum on my personality.'”
What an egomaniac.
Coderre’s platform = whatever it takes to make Denis Coderre mayor again.
DeWolf 11:28 on 2021-03-31 Permalink
Seriously, though, since I’m not going to read his group-written tome, I’m glad to hear some specific planks of his platform. And they are just as bad as I was expecting.
>> “He also proposes delaying property-tax increases for people on fixed incomes, as a way of limiting dislocations from gentrification.”
Great, but this only benefits house-poor homeowners, which is a pretty small group in Montreal. 63% percent of the population are renters and this would do nothing to protect them against renovictions and the like.
>> “Revitalizing the downtown would happen through tax cuts for businesses and developing smaller commercial spaces for retailers whose transactions occur mainly online.”
Tax cuts for businesses would be great because commercial taxes are very high in Montreal. Of course, this would create a budget shortfall and I’m curious to know how Coderre would make up for that. Would he slash STM funding again like he did in 2013? Fewer buses, less metro service, lower taxes for businesses?
We start to get into a problem with the second idea. It’s the kind of wishful thinking campaign plank that gets abandoned within the first year in office. Coderre was notorious for his handshake deals. How exactly do you get developers to build smaller retail spaces if they don’t want to? Besides, Montreal already has a lot of vacant retail spaces. I don’t think the problem is they’re all too big.
>> “He doesn’t oppose the idea of bike paths but he does say they should be built in collaboration of other stakeholders.”
Coderre’s bike strategy involved painting a lot of white lines on residential side streets and patting himself on the back for adding many new kilometres of “bike paths” every year. I expect that would be his angle once again: something that looks good on paper but is functionally useless.
A lot has been written about how Coderre lost all that weight by riding his bike, but the reality is that he’s a weekend road warrior who dresses up in a lycra costume, not the kind of everyday cyclist who uses their bike to get to work, school or shopping. Montreal needs safe infrastructure for people who wear flip flops and dresses while riding their bike to the grocery store. What it doesn’t need are more white lines in the dooring zone.
>> “Coderre also vows to repeal Montreal’s affordable housing bylaw, which, when it comes into effect next month, will force large developers to either include affordable units in a project or contribute to a municipal housing fund. (…) One of the reasons, though, that the city is dealing with a severe shortage of social housing is that the private sector has consistently failed to provide enough rental units for low-income Montrealers.”
And here’s the rub. Coderre’s strategy for affordable housing means repealing the only concrete measure Montreal has taken in this area (and one that only comes into effect this week!) and politely asking his buddies in the real estate sector to please sir build more units for the poors.
Kate 11:31 on 2021-03-31 Permalink
DeWolf, you mention 2 things that are in conflict. How would he get developers to build more small, cheap commercial spaces, if he’s unwilling to force them to build more small, cheap living spaces?
DeWolf 11:34 on 2021-03-31 Permalink
Exactly. Coderre’s platform on affordable housing: “Trust me. I know some guys.”