Montreal City Weblog

Kate 08:13 on 2025-06-20 Permalink Reply  

• Ian 09:02 on 2025-06-20 Permalink

  I guess if there’s a REM station nearby it’s not so bad. Sounds like a pretty neat project but hopefully one of those retail spaces is a decent size grocery store.

• Ephraim 10:25 on 2025-06-20 Permalink

  I always wonder, was that where Borden’s used to be? What was there before the NFB?

• DeWolf 10:56 on 2025-06-20 Permalink

  I’m pretty sure it was farmland before the NFB opened. They built their complex in 1956 which is also when the adjacent residential neighbourhood was developed.

• Kate 10:57 on 2025-06-20 Permalink

  Ian, the McGill urban planning guy the CBC talked to is quoted talking down the need for community space and for grocery shopping. As if developers need to be convinced to include less of that kind of thing!

  How close will this development be to major highways? I guess that’s attractive for some because it means you’re driving on a highway in minutes. But air quality would concern me.

• Ian 11:38 on 2025-06-20 Permalink

  It’s on CDL, a stone’s throw from the 40. About 20 minutes drive to buy a carton of milk. And of course that side of the 15 and the 40 has terrible bus service.

  Still with a bit of infra and necessities it’s a good reuse of space… but for low income you’ll need to solve for residents that don’t drive.

• Blork 12:57 on 2025-06-20 Permalink

  The gigantic T&T Asian grocery store is 800 metres away.

• Kate 13:15 on 2025-06-20 Permalink

  How accessible is it, though? I know from experience that sometimes things that look close on the map can be hard to access if there’s a highway in the way.

• Blork 13:18 on 2025-06-20 Permalink

  800m as the crow flies. Easy 16 minute walk for humans. No need to cross the highway. https://maps.app.goo.gl/4peBN5TjD2YFkAiw6

• Blork 13:25 on 2025-06-20 Permalink

  Regarding the location, it is right on CdL/40, but as far as I know the buildings that are fronting on the highway will be used for community things. The housing units will be built a bit farther back, where there is a large parking lot now, and some other small buildings.

  Air quality will not be great, and there will be the constant roar of cars and trucks. But there are plenty of single family houses on both sides of the 40 (VSL on one side and TMR on the other) that are just as close or even closer, so it’s not like they’ll be alone with this problem.

  Satellite view: the big parking lot is where the new housing units will be built (AFAIK) and some of the smaller buildings will also likely be torn down and replaced by larger housing units. https://maps.app.goo.gl/2Ptm6NcmMtybCQWS9

• Ian 13:40 on 2025-06-20 Permalink

  Good one, Blork. I misremembered the NFB site further west. If you cross the 40 at Ste Croix where it turns into Lucerne there’s also a mall right there with a Provigo etc.

• Nicholas 15:08 on 2025-06-20 Permalink

  That’s a useful story to know which, uhhh, director of the school of urban planning to never listen to. He complains about needing to do their weekly grocery shopping elsewhere. As mentioned there’s the T&T and the Provigo, and also a Metro Plus on Cote-Vertu, and with the pedestrian/bike crossing of the train tracks on Montpellier, you can just stay on the REM for another stop and then walk by the Metro on the way home (same with T&T on the way home from du College). When you take transit regularly it’s common to stop at a grocery store on the way home a few times a week to pick up a few things you can carry, rather than drive to a massive store once a week and load up a car, and I think we can all guess why this guy doesn’t understand that.

  Which is why he also complains there’s not enough parking. “Unless people happen to work along the REM line, getting to work … typically requires a car.” Has this guy not heard of transfers? Does he think the only people who use transit live on a one-seat ride to their work? Hundreds of thousands of Montrealers use transit every day, and many of them need to switch between buses and/or metros. The REM will get people downtown in something like 15 minutes, after a 12 minute walk or a short bus trip. Or take the orange line. Or there are a bunch of buses, and even an express bus down CdL to the airport. In a city where a third of households don’t own a car, and being so close to high capacity, frequent rail transit, I suspect the statement “I suspect that housing units will be more difficult to sell without at least one space per unit” is not based in reality.

  This is a weird location, next to industrial, boxed in by a few rail lines and the highway. The air quality won’t be good. There’s a dearth of retail nearby, and it didn’t have much of a neighbourhood feel when I’ve been there. But the transit access is/will be surprisingly good, there is some green space nearby, there are three nearby grocery stores. Tons of people live much farther from this stuff. If I was asked to speak to the media about something as a professional I would try to spend more than thirty seconds researching and thinking about it.

  A postscript: when I googled him here was the phrase that popped up as the sample text from his blog, the third hit: “Montreal has different urban morphology, public transport, and weather. I think that these differences are well-understood by most commentators.” Most. And after reading that blog post, and the one linked, I’ll make sure to recommend people not go to McGill for urban planning, and go somewhere like Polytechnique instead.

• Ephraim 10:59 on 2025-06-21 Permalink

  Just going back to my question. After some research, I found that Borden’s distribution was 333 Bd Lebeau which is now Natrel/Agropur. But I think that was the distribution. I remember a location on Cote-de-Liesse. And I’m thinking it was 2365 De la Côte-de-Liesse with the building behind also part of it.

• Kate 14:27 on 2025-06-22 Permalink

  Haven’t been able to help, Ephraim – I never knew that part of town well.