“It’s odd. City hall has the power to determine a condo building’s number of floors, its number of units and even its number of parking spots. But it doesn’t have the power to set its number of bedrooms.”
So building thousands of one bedroom condos is how the Tremblay administration fights sprawl? This is how the city believes it will keep and attract young people planning families will stay in the city? It is really difficult to believe that there is any intelligent life forms making decisions in this city. Unless, of course, this is all part of a grand design to fill the bank accounts of developers who will, of course, be very grateful indeed. There simply can be no other explanation as it is highly unlikely that our city is run by people who are mentally incapacitated, is there? In the meantime Montreal’s potential looks more like Buffalo North all the time.
Henry Aubin: Island opportunity goes off the rails
MONTREAL – The new census this week showed that the off-island suburbs have finally surpassed the Montreal Island in population. What can Montreal city hall do to attract and retain more people?
Most of the people who leave the 514-area for the 450 do so reluctantly. They are often young people with children (or who hope to have children). They enjoy the city’s stimulation and its proximity to workplaces, shopping and entertainment. But they leave because there’s not enough suitable housing in their price range. The taxes are also high and services spotty. Not the greatest place to to raise a family.
Let’s acknowledge straight off that the city can never compete with the off-island on the basis of real-estate costs or taxes.
But the availability of suitable housing is another problem – one on which city hall can act much more strongly than now. (more…)
