Lachine waterfront park on hold
The old plan to turn the old Lachine marina into a waterfront park has been put on hold. Video report from CBC.
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DeWolf 10:09 on 2026-03-29 Permalink
This comes after the EM administration in Hochelaga cancelled the Square Dézéry sponge park plan, forfeiting a big chunk of federal money in the process. There’s a lot of federal funding for the Lachine park that they’d also have to give up if they outright cancelled the project.
I never thought we’d have a municipal government that was… anti-parks.
Ian 10:52 on 2026-03-29 Permalink
They can be opposed to specific projects without being “anti park”.
By the same logic you could say that PM’s failure to turn any of their properties into social housing was because they were “anti homeless”.
People often forgive their own political “side” with statments like “they have to make decisions, you can’t fund everything” but view their opponents doing the same as being anti-whatever. It’s hypocritical.
DeWolf 12:02 on 2026-03-29 Permalink
They’re also opposed to expanding Père-Marquette. Once is a fluke, twice is a coincidence, three times is a trend.
I’m not sure how you can defend the return to a privatized waterfront in Lachine that can only be used by the boat-owning members of a marina?
Ian 12:35 on 2026-03-29 Permalink
By the same token, then, PM was anti-homeless.
I disagree with your logic, but if you insist.
Blork 13:04 on 2026-03-29 Permalink
I’ve never seen a good explanation for why anyoine needs this park or if anyone even wants it. It’s not like there isn’t already a gigantic (1.5 million square foot) park that is almost entirely waterfrontage literally a stone’s throw away. (You could literally stand in the former marina and play frisbee with someone in Parc René-Lévesque.)
My understanding is that it was expensive to maintain the marina. OK, so maybe charge people more to park their boats there? Otherwise it just comes off as hating on people who like boats.
And “pro-park” or “anti-park” doesn’t even clock here because like I said, there’s already a huge park right there. It’s like if someone said “lets dig up all those graves in the cemetery on Mont-Royal because we want to build a park!” If you object to that, does it make you “anti-park?”
steph 19:04 on 2026-03-29 Permalink
Not wanting to build social housing actually makes you pro homeless. If you house them, they’re not homeless anymore.
DeWolf 23:07 on 2026-03-29 Permalink
@Blork The justification was that the marina was decrepit and needed a lot of renovations, so the city decided that if it was going to spend millions to rebuild it, it should be investing that money into making the space as widely accessible as possible. Whether it’s a park or marina, it’s the city paying, so they made a political choice about who would benefit most from that land.
Toula Drimonis wrote about it back in 2020 and I agree with her take: https://cultmtl.com/2020/10/lachine-marina-montreal-taxpayers-pleasure-boats-boating-waterfront-park-public-land-should-be-accessible-to-the-public/
@Ian You get really stuck into people when they make a glib quip, which is surprising because that’s most of what you offer in your comments.
So fine, I take it back: EM isn’t anti-park. They’re just relentlessly pro-status-quo, even when that status quo is dysfunctional. They’ve postponed or cancelled so many vital infrastructure projects, they’re clearly just kicking the can down the road with no real vision for the future.
The marina project is not vital or essential, I’ll give you that. But there are so many other examples. They’ve delayed the reconstruction of Masson that was supposed to start this year, which means the sewers and water main will continue to decay, the merchants will continue to live in limbo for at least another year, and construction bills will increase due to inflation. They haven’t even bothered to explain why it’s being delayed.
The Dézéry sponge park was meant to respond to the fact that the surrounding area is in a cuvette and is therefore prone to flooding. The project was developed over several years through public workshops, the money was already budgeted, the feds were going to pay for a big chunk of it. And according to the borough mayor it’s being cancelled not so the city’s money can be reallocated to something else but simply to preserve some street parking.