The city’s urban planning guy says there are plans for a new bylaw to discourage keeping commercial storefronts vacant. About time.
La Presse has a piece about conditions on the Main, between new buildings and abandoned properties.
Updates from January, 2023 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
-
Kate
-
Kate
Metro lists places you can skate in town.
j2
For the technically inclined, city-run rink information is available as opendata (XML) so you can integrate it yourself. The data includes condition, when it was flooded, cleared, and so on.
https://donnees.montreal.ca/ville-de-montreal/patinoiresI added it to a dashboard to gently suggest maybe the fam should hit the ice (well last year…)
For those less technically inclined you can use the same data at https://www.patinermontreal.ca/.
DisgruntledGoat
Aha! So one could write an iOS shortcut to get notifications about your local rink conditions. You can totally parse XML through Shortcuts.
-
Kate
One of the group Les Farfadaas that blocked the Lafontaine tunnel in March 2021 has pleaded guilty to mischief. They were mad about public health measures.
-
Kate
The fugitive cows that went on the run in rural Quebec before Christmas have all been rounded up.
My favourite quote was from this item in Le Nouvelliste: “Tu leur mets une clôture de trois pieds de haut, puis woup! Y sautent par-dessus… Sont pas juste en forme, y nous rient dans face!”
(Too bad La Vache qui rit is already taken…)
-
Kate
A driver died early Monday in Montreal North when their SUV collided with a tree and caught fire.
Nobody mentions how the tree is doing.
qatzelok
And the articles in the previous post don’t cover the cows’ perspective at all.
“Master recovers runaway bovine slaves….” “Driver rams into decorative green thing…”
MarcG
@q: Here’s a song about a pig you might enjoy.
mare 12:05 on 2023-01-10 Permalink
Building owners should be able to ‘circumvent’ the law by allowing to rent their stores with temporary low rent leases to (visual) artist to be used as studios. They do that in the Netherlands and it adds lively shops to a street and on top of that the artist can promote their work in the store windows. The leases (technically you loan the space, and don’t have a lease) can be cancelled on short notice (often a month), but often the organization that manages these have a new space for you. Regularly having to move sucks, but can also provide new inspiration.
I have friends that do this, and some of them are in the same place for years. In the Netherlands it actually applies to all buildings, residential and commercial (even offices!), that can otherwise be legally squatted after a few months (six?) of being left empty.
Ephraim 12:34 on 2023-01-10 Permalink
We need a new tax rate on vacancies. Vacant buildings, vacant housing, vacant storefronts. If it’s not used, it should cost more
Janet 12:52 on 2023-01-10 Permalink
I spent fifteen wonderful years on the top floor of that building on the corner of Duluth. Seeing it featured as the face of decrepitude and neglect is like coming across an old lover homeless begging on a street corner.
Already back in the 80s and 90s, the landlord showed zero interest in the building. I always wondered what he was hanging onto it for.
Ephraim 13:04 on 2023-01-10 Permalink
@Janet – The appreciation in the value of the building/land. It’s like hotels, there are two types of hotel owners, those who invest and keep on making their hotel/building better and those who run it into the ground and sell it to someone to redo… and end with McGill buying it for housing or independent dorms.
Michael 19:04 on 2023-01-10 Permalink
We need to lower municipal taxes on semi commercial buildings. These taxes gets passed on to storefronts and the city charges absolutely usury level rates for semi commercial buildings.