Silo No 5 may be turned into an urban farm in the coming years.
Updates from May, 2022 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Real estate promoters have their eyes on Peel Basin with plans to build twice as many units as the city had intended for the area.
DeWolf
I mean… we need more housing. I don’t see why the city felt the need to so drastically restrict the area’s density. But there do need to be strong planning guidelines so we don’t end up with a Griffintown-style free-for-all that the city needs to spend millions retrofitting so it’s actually a liveable neighbourhood.
Give the developers extra density in exchange for lots of cash, and use that cash to build public amenities and social housing. It’s a formula that Vancouver and other cities have been using for years but for some reason Montreal still seems to struggle with it.
Faiz imam
Yeah. With its proximity to the city, natural beauty by the canal and proximity to transit, that area should be significantly built up.
As long as the planning rules are in place to make sure the right physical and social infrastructure is available, I’d say go for it.
Ephraim
Let them increase density but at the same time, require more green areas and allow absolutely NO street parking at all. NONE. Make them put every damn parking spot underground. Because this is an area where they shouldn’t need parking, it’s walking distance to the REM. Zone it all residential with no AirBnB allowed. And require integrated bike trails that do not run along roads in the area.
Blork
It all sounds very nice, but say goodbye to your nostalgic views of the Five Roses sign. Just sayin.
Michael
No cars is actually an awful idea for people living there. People do invite guests and family over. They will have street parking for sure.
JaneyB
‘New innovation zone’…ugh, I hear nonsense already eg warmed-over Richard Florida. They want to build another glorified urban dormitory for single tech workers with 80k jobs à la Griffintown. Yes, we do need more housing but it needs to be useful 4 1/2s and 5 1/2s that works for families of IGA clerks and bus drivers. Fewer granite countertops and more living and storage space for actual families. I would love to see a glossy pitch that targeted the housing-stressed workers that make this city – and every city – run.
Su
So what size are the “twice as many units” compared to the unit size in the city’s announced plan?
Ephraim
@Michael – There are many cities like this. The buildings build a small parking lot for visitors. Streets were not intended to be for parking, they were intended as a conveyance route. They are very expensive parking spaces, considering the cost to install them, upkeep them, plow them, etc. If you want visitor parking.. build it.
Em
The city has said it wants this area to remain an employment hub and I’m glad this vision seems to include keeping jobs in the area.
I think density is fine but there is also a big lack of public amenities in Griffintown (schools, sports facilities, etc) which should be considered. This is also the site of the Black Rock, so ideally the proposed memorial park could be integrated in more than just a token way. I’m not a highrise fan but I do think this is an area where some higher buildings would be appropriate as long as they don’t block Five Roses.
As for public transit…there really isn’t any there. The REM station is actually quite far and the buses are very infrequent (I live nearby). The promoters want a second REM station — wonder if they’re offering to pay for it. But no parking at all isn’t really realistic, especially because the site is right next to the Victoria Bridge. People are going to be commuting on and off the island to work there.
Ephraim
@Em – Didn’t say NO parking… I said no STREET parking. Make it all on site. The promoters want to build, then build to include parking. No street parking, minimal pavement, put it underground, put it in the building. Make this part of town where streets have no parking and there is plenty of grass. At best… no overnight parking. Which will also cut down on the ability to do AirBnB.
There are PLENTY of places in this world that offer no parking and/or no overnight parking. You are limited to the parking that you own/and or your building provides. Parking, like everything else is a resource. Heck, right here on the Island, both Hampstead and Cote-St-Luc offer no overnight parking.
Last time I saw the numbers, the cost to the city of Montreal was $27K per kilometer of paved lane. Let’s say that we need 5 meters to park a car, that’s 200 cars… the cost to the city is $135 per car, just to provide parking spaces and that’s a common cost… not the car owner’s cost. But, if instead each apartment included a parking space, they are worth $50K each and the tax on the spot is about $40 a year. So $135 in savings and $40 in taxes, for a net of $175 per annum.
It also looks a lot nicer to not having cars all over the streets. Some cities have even moved public parking into underground lots with a children’s playground and green space above it… to free the streets entirely of cars.
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Kate
It’s hardly surprising news that the long‑term weather forecast for this summer involves heat, humidity and thunderstorms. (Same CP story in French and English.)
Joey
An enterprising journalism student ought to compare the predicitons with reality for the least 10 years and see if these stories are ever close to the mark. Also, interesting that the meterologists seem not to have really internalized that climate change is accelerating and ‘normal’ weather much more quickly than before. If 10 out of the last 10 years have been ‘above average,’ it’s time to redefine ‘average.’
Blork
Isn’t that a bit like the old saw “Forecast for today: light. Forecast for tonight: dark.”
PatrickC
I agree with Joey about the changing averages. It’s never clear to me what time-span is being used. In terms of predictions, where I am (Los Angeles), I tracked the high temp over one summer, and in most cases the actual high was higher than the predicted one (though often within the margin of error obscured by the fake precision of a specific degree), and in particular the “cooling trend” after a heat wave came later and was less pronounced than predicted. As with the dreaded “storm watch,” there’s a lot of hype in weather predictions, especially on TV. But when have you ever heard a weather forecast begin, “well, we were wrong about yesterday…”?
SMD
There is a meteorological convention for averages (known as Climate Normals): averages are over a thirty-year period, starting with the year 1901. This means that in 2022 we are comparing our weather data to the average weather over the 1991-2020 period. The periods are updated every decade, so in 2032 we will be comparing to average weather from 2001-2030.
Joey
@SMD the assumption that climate-change effects will occur at the same pace as previous meterological trends reveals a misunderstanding of what climate change is… or to put it another way, like the children of Lake Wobegon, every year from now on will be above average.
SMD
Yup! I wonder if there is a push among meteorologists to establish new averages more frequently, like every five years. It is going to get harder and harder to keep up.
thomas
The average seems to be changing fairly slowly and is not really the salient metric. Isn’t the phenomena we observe and ensuing unpredictability because the variance is increasing?
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Kate
It isn’t just Quebec. France is banning English videogame terms, hoping to replace “streamer” with “joueur-animateur en direct” and so on.
What can you do? English is almost always going to be snappier.
Thomas
Quote unquote banned in official government use. We can all breathe a sigh of relief that the Twitch streamers are safe from this terrible tyranny. Personally, I would expect the Government of France to use the French language for official communications.
Chris
It isn’t just French places either.
There was a row about Chinese-only signs in Richmond BC for example. Or the mounting pushback against the growing use of Spanish in the USA.
Quebec is hardly unique with all this.
Kate
The examples are different. French is in a particular position, its culture tends to assume its speakers are the most civilized people on the planet, yet they’re constantly being undermined by how much cooler and catchier English tends to be.
English speakers have their own kind of smugness that can turn nasty, yes. But the relative population of speakers of English is so much more dominant, it’s a different psychology.
JaneyB
I’m sure Francophones can invent snappier French terms; they really just have to decide to. ‘Pourriel’ and ‘courriel’ spring to mind. Of course, it was Quebecois who invented those winning ones. Maybe it’s a North American mentality.
Ephraim
Well, they could have gone with something like diffusier(e) or even diffjouer. I hereby claim that if you see this in future use in French that ***I*** have proof that I coined them first.
Robert H
Nobel attempt, mais trop tard, surtout avec les joueurs internationaux. Right, Kate. The cultural / lingustic chasms do create different psychologies or mentalities and the advantage goes to english over other languages because it’s so deeply embedded in everything current, hip, practical, popular and lucrative. Only Spanish can approach it in ubiquity and Chinese can surpass it in sheer numbers but those two lack the other factors that truly push a tongue to the status of everybody’s lingua franca. It’s not that french doesn’t have a chance, it does have its ocassional successes: “courriel” as JaneyB cited for example seems well established within Quebec standard, demotic usage. But timing is critical. A neologism must take root early enough to catch on among speakers in its linguistic group before the inevitable incursion of the equivalent term from an adjacent, dominant language. I remember when francophones referred to the weekend, as «La Fin de Semaine,» a term that has completely disappeared from usage. There’s a short commercial that’s been in heavy rotation on francophone TV for a new Honda four-door model. The genial spokesperson is touting the wide angle at which the rear seat doors open and says «Ça, c’est comme rentrer dans un grand walk-in.»
walkerp
Have to call you out with the weird assumption that “English is always going to be snappier”. That’s just not the case at all. Yes with official language, French tends to need to be more precise and longer, but for slang and terms created with technological changes, French has several snappier terms that work really well.
Robert H
Noble! Ah bon dieu!
Kevin
Gorram. My post about the group founded in part by the city of Paris to promote investment in France was gobbled.
Here’s their website https://financefortomorrow.com/
Poutine Pundit
“Débarbouillette” may be the snappiest word in any language, and it just happens to be in French.
Kate
I’m fond of “dégringolade” myself, since it sounds like somebody not only falling down, but all the change dropping out of their pockets at the same time.
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Kate
A hair-raising list of narrow escapes and cut corners is in a report from the CNESST on safety practices in the Mount Royal tunnel being refit for the REM.
A Twitter reader suggests this article and video from the REM itself.
Robert H
…NouvLR se défendait en disant « appliquer les meilleures pratiques de l’industrie »
« Il est primordial pour notre organisation que les employés et entrepreneurs sur les chantiers du REM travaillent dans des conditions parfaitement sécuritaires »
Pardon my rudeness, but it really does seem appropriate from a worker’s standpoint to say that NouvLR is full of shit. The enterprise utterly underestimated the severity of the hazards involved in the Mont Royal tunnel renovation project. Then it displayed a blatant, repetitive lack of concern for the well-being of employees labouring in a cloud of carbon monoxide, toxic silica dust, and possibly live explosives ready to be set off by the next bulldozer, jackhammer, shovel or vibration. Thank goodness for the CNESST and good journalism since NouvLR doesn’t seem to give a damn. Nineteen violations! And they’ll only concede six! In a noisy, hazardous, dirty worksite, it’s hard enough to focus and calm your nerves just to get the job done without the additional suspicion that management doesn’t have your back; that the only thing standing between you and injury or death is keeping your wits about you and having confidence in your own judgement. I hope the people doing the sweating are very well paid, and if the safest procedures require additional time and money, fine. Go over budget and push it back another year. I hope to use the REM, but I dread headlines about a horrific accident the tunnel before or after opening.
JaneyB
Wow, that’s a damning account. Thank goodness indeed for the CNESST and also La Presse. In light of those dangers, this is one time it should be late and over budget.
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Kate
A teenager was stabbed in Lasalle overnight, but details are scanty.
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Kate
Minor déjà vu: shots fired in Rivière‑des‑Prairies overnight, echoing an incident from four days ago. No victims or perpetrators have been found.
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Kate
Radio-Canada has a detailed story about the creation of an ecological corridor in Côte‑des‑Neiges. Lots of photos, but I think it needs a simple map.
Ian 20:43 on 2022-06-02 Permalink
Anything but condos