Updates from August, 2024 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Kate 21:00 on 2024-08-08 Permalink | Reply  

    A poster welcoming people to the refurbished city hall (briefly discussed previously) is continuing to ruffle feelings, Yves‑François Blanchet being the latest to deplore the figures depicted. Or rather, one of the figures: a woman in a headscarf.

    When the sign was first noticed, the Journal ran a lot of sputtering criticism. I thought the outrage had begun to die down, but three days ago, La Presse ran an op‑ed from an Iranian feminist also deploring the image.

    Surely city hall knew what they were evoking. I’d love to have overheard those discussions.

     

    • Ian 09:03 on 2024-08-09 Permalink

      Some people just won’t be happy until everyone looks like oncle Sylvain who gave you your first sip of beer.

  • Kate 20:47 on 2024-08-08 Permalink | Reply  

    The pedestrianization of Plaza St‑Hubert isn’t universally satisfactory, with some merchants feeling the loss of parking is hurting them.

    Even more unpopular is construction on Henri‑Bourassa for a bike path.

     

    • Nicholas 21:42 on 2024-08-08 Permalink

      It’s really interesting to see a furniture store say they love the pedestrianization, because you really can’t transport many of those items without a car or truck. As for places like a hair salon, I won’t say no one is dissuaded from walking 200 m, but as is often the case with these stories, it is often the owner of the store who is annoyed that they have to walk and can’t park in front, and studies have found that owners constantly overestimate the number of people who drive to their store and underestimate the number who walk, take transit or even bike.

    • Ian 08:35 on 2024-08-09 Permalink

      I suspect most people buying furniture would have it delivered… but regardless, looking for parking on St Huey is a sucker’s game, there are parking lots on adjacent streets that are way better, like the nearly block-long parking lot on St Andre between Beaubien and St-Zo. Like, good luck finding a spot right in front of your hair salon, lol.

      Anyway even according to google maps the 290m walk from the big parking on St Andre (by the bowling alley) to Yira is 4 minutes. If you can’t walk 4 minutes, there are bigger problems.

      Come down to it though, St Huey has always been far more pleasant to walk on than to drive or even bicycle through. The street is narrow, crowded, and often gridlocked with dopes circling the block trying to find parking. Pedestrianization just makes sense.

  • Kate 20:37 on 2024-08-08 Permalink | Reply  

    Fierce amounts of rain are expected Friday and some events have already been cancelled.

     

    • Major Annoyance 21:26 on 2024-08-08 Permalink

      Who’s down for a kayak race in the Decarie trench tomorrow? I’m game.

    • Uatu 01:47 on 2024-08-09 Permalink

      I’m waiting to see what breaks down first – the rem or the orange line. Whom I kidding? Both will at rush hour. Time to break out the galoshes for the long wait….

  • Kate 09:53 on 2024-08-08 Permalink | Reply  

    Le Devoir looks into why some landlords allow buildings to fall into decrepitude and how many get away with not paying fines. In any case, the city has only levied 24 fines while 800 buildings have been left to crumble by their owners.

     

    • bob 10:21 on 2024-08-08 Permalink

      So, are these 800 vacant buildings counted as part of the vacancy rate? I suppose not. 2500 empty apartments that are known about, which doesn’t count empty apartments in buildings that are otherwise occupied. But remember – the housing crisis is caused by immigrants!

    • Ephraim 11:27 on 2024-08-08 Permalink

      We need a law that taxes unoccupied apartments at the commercial rate. We also need a law to register all leases. In fact, leases should be registered with the city to get the residential rate of taxation.

    • Tim 11:29 on 2024-08-08 Permalink

      Why aren’t we using liens instead of fines? A lien will eventually get paid.

    • Ian 12:38 on 2024-08-08 Permalink

      Being a landlord should require a license, and there needs to be a vacancy tax.
      Taxes and licensing are directly within the jurisdiction of the city, there is no excuse.

    • Chris 18:02 on 2024-08-08 Permalink

      >But remember – the housing crisis is caused by immigrants!

      Yeah, anti-immigration activists (of which I am not one) have lots of spin over this, but on the other hand they’re not totally wrong. It’s basic math that if the number of people is increased (by policy choice, birth rate, or whatever) and the number of homes does not increase correspondingly, well, of course that’s going to increase housing prices. The government decided to substantially increase immigration but they did not decide to substantially increase housing stock. That was not exactly genius on their part.

    • Ian 19:06 on 2024-08-08 Permalink

      As others have pointed it out, it’s not the hardscrabble strawberry pickers driving up rents, it’s the well-heeled Francophone white upper middle class emigrés who think Montreal rents are hilariously low.

      Of course the majority of immigrants are not well-heeled Francophone white upper middle class emigrés even though they disproportionately skew the stats.

      This is the problem with “common sense” statistical observations. Immigration is not the cause of our housing crisis. Gentrification & speculation are.

    • Tim 21:01 on 2024-08-08 Permalink

      Rents are being driven up because of the competition that is a result of low supply across the board. The well heeled Francophone competes against other well heeled folk. The poor strawberry workers also compete against each other. Ungentrified areas of Montreal have increased significantly too.

    • Ian 21:12 on 2024-08-08 Permalink

      It wasn’t day labourers that made St Henri one of the most expensive rental markets in town.
      Where are these ungentrifeid areas of which you speak? Even HoMa is fighting the gentrifiers.

    • Michael 11:29 on 2024-08-09 Permalink

      White people are responsible for the run up in rents…. interesting.

    • Kate 14:39 on 2024-08-09 Permalink

      Michael, please take your unsubtle passive-aggressive sniping elsewhere.

    • Michael 15:10 on 2024-08-09 Permalink

      Everyone, white, black, asian are all part of the demand factor and you can’t single out 1 race for the reason why rents have been going up.

      Am I allowed to say its racist for Ian to claim just rich white people are why rents have gone up?

      There have been rich asians, africans, Indians that have been coming as well.

    • Ian 18:49 on 2024-08-09 Permalink

      Michael’s not entirely wrong – but I didn’t blame white people generically.

      I did blame rents going up on well-heeled Francophone white upper middle class emigrés who think Montreal rents are hilariously low. I know there are lots of rich people from all over the world coming to our fair city, but the majority of the gentrifiers I’m seeing in East Outremont, Mile End, and petit-Patrie are bougie white folks with Parisian accents. I admit it’s a huge generalization & I’m sure it’s a different demographic in different parts of town but I am 100% certain it’s not working class day labourers driving up the rents anywhere as Tim suggests.

      This skips over the point that I was actually trying to make though, which is that it’s not a question of race, but class. Again, the majority of immigrants are not well-heeled Francophone white upper middle class emigrés even though they disproportionately skew the stats. Immigration is not the cause of our housing crisis. Gentrification & speculation are.

    • Chris 20:07 on 2024-08-09 Permalink

      >Immigration is not the cause of our housing crisis. Gentrification & speculation are.

      There is no “the” cause. Like most complex things, there are multiple causes.

      Immigration is one cause. How on earth could letting in x people but building far less than x homes not be a contributing factor? Let’s not be silly.

    • Ian 00:14 on 2024-08-10 Permalink

      Because it’s artificial scarcity. How many vacant apartments are there in Montreal? How many Airbnbs?

  • Kate 09:06 on 2024-08-08 Permalink | Reply  

    Hotel workers are on strike Thursday and are planning a midday rally at Place des Festivals. Twenty‑three hotels are affected by the strike.

    Later, reports are in on the downtown march.

     

    • Kate 09:04 on 2024-08-08 Permalink | Reply  

      Airborne ultrafine particles from transportation and industry are killing people in Montreal and Toronto, and – by association – other cities too.

       

      • Chris 17:57 on 2024-08-08 Permalink

        It’s clearly dangerous for pedestrians on sidewalks to be walking so close to cars, therefore we should mandate that pedestrians must wear masks to protect themselves from this! /s

      • Ian 19:07 on 2024-08-08 Permalink

        You’re not doing sarcasm very well. The obvious choice, like blaming fireplaces for all particulate pollution, is to ban pedestrains. 😉

      • CE 09:22 on 2024-08-09 Permalink

        If the air is so dirty, why don’t we get rid of the air?

      • Ian 18:51 on 2024-08-09 Permalink

        haha well played * golf clap *

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