Montreal City Weblog

Kate 16:47 on 2026-04-16 Permalink Reply  

• DeWolf 18:48 on 2026-04-16 Permalink

  Great initiative, although it should be noted that it only applies to Ville-Marie borough. Other boroughs like the Plateau and Verdun already have reduced rates for terrasses.

• DeWolf 18:54 on 2026-04-16 Permalink

  Incidentally, I love that in Montreal it’s pretty much unquestioned that terrasses are a public good. In New York, the whole “sidewalk shed” debate revealed how many people there see them as a nuisance. And in many other cities (ahem, Vancouver and Toronto), the regulations for street terrasses are extremely restrictive.

• jeather 20:50 on 2026-04-16 Permalink

  I have no idea what the right price for a terrasse permit is though I do think 1400 for the entire season on Ste-Catherine is a real steal (while 11k seems like a lot).

• Kate 21:17 on 2026-04-16 Permalink

  I’d understood that the terrasse fee was supposed to offset the parking fees lost for the space, but I suppose they can be flexible about what that amount is.

• Nicholas 22:15 on 2026-04-16 Permalink

  Renting ground level retail space on St Catherine St seems to be like $100-$200 per square foot per month. Obviously that would include winter, and this is high season, but indoors is more secure, so let’s just say that’s a vague range of what the market rate is. So $1,400 for an entire season should get you about space for one chair, and $11,000 gets you a two-top without the chairs.

  Terasses are great, and it’s good to use this space to generate both revenue and happiness when it’s busier and then reclaim most of it the rest of the year. But I’m not sure if all that lost opportunity cost should flow to the restaurant operators rather than the public.

• DeWolf 23:52 on 2026-04-16 Permalink

  The cost of parking vignettes, or even pay parking for that matter, doesn’t even come close to the total cost of maintaining the road space and the negative externalities of dedicating so much public space to private vehicle storage. So I don’t think terrasses should be judged entirely on their economic benefits either. It’s what provides the most social good — and in this case, having lively streets is worth the (temporary, seasonal) tradeoff.

  That said I’m not saying it should be a free-for-all. There are already a ton of regulations around the built form and opening hours of terrasses.

• Joey 11:10 on 2026-04-17 Permalink

  @Nicholas but it’s not ‘ground level retail space’ – it’s parking spots. You couldn’t otherwise establish a business in a parking space the way you could in a building. IMO the fairest method would fix the permit cost at a rate more or less equivalent to the foregone revenue – a very quick estimate has this at about $2400 per month. Obviously $11K for the season is a lot closer to the foregone revenue than $1400.

  Anyway, isn’t it funny how all these cranky resto owners complain ceaselessly when the city removes parking spaces but have no issue taking them over so they can expand their footprint. I think we tend to think of terraces as just responding to our desire to be outside after another hellish winter, but from a restaurant’s perspective, adding terrace seating can significantly increase the potential customer base and lead to major bumps in revenue. Somehow an implicit ~$10K subsidy to every restaurant that builds a terrace doesn’t make a lot of sense…

• Nicholas 11:36 on 2026-04-17 Permalink

  “You couldn’t otherwise establish a business in a parking space the way you could in a building.” Every city that actually easily allows food carts says that’s wrong.

• DeWolf 11:53 on 2026-04-17 Permalink

  @Nicholas Sure, but food carts are usually charged licensing fees and not rent for the space they occupy (especially if they’re allowed to move around). And those fees are pretty low, especially compared to commercial rents. In Vancouver it’s around $1,500 for the year. Similar in LA (but in US dollars).

• Joey 13:10 on 2026-04-17 Permalink

  I was actually going to write that food carts/trucks would be a notable exception, but my editor struck it.