By Tracey Arial
www.thesuburban.com
Properties in Laval with elevations within 24.49 metres of the usual high water mark of the Mille Iles River, Rivière des Prairies or Lake of Two Mountains could flood in the next 2, 20 or 100 years.
The City of Laval plans to change the regulations about what can be constructed on these properties. It invited owners to a public consultation at 7 p.m. Monday, Dec. 15.
The consultation was held at the Château Royal hotel, 3500 Souvenir.
City contacts weren’t available to provide more information prior to this issue going to press, so we’ll provide details about the meeting next week.
In the meantime, anyone who wants to know developments as they occur should refer to the website operated by volunteer members of the Comité des citoyens de Laval Ouest.
The volunteers running the French-language site are extremely well-informed. Regular readers of learned about Monday’s consultation on Wednesday, for example, while media were informed Friday afternoon at 4:23.
The proposed changes to the current regulations for property owners appeared on the blog two weeks ago. If they go through as proposed, sheds, pools and fences will be approved for properties in the 20-year zone. Regulations that went into effect in November 2013 allowed for none of this.
Committee members recently met with municipal, provincial and federal representatives about flood zones restrictions. Published reports about the meetings appeared on their
blog soon after. Volunteers also respond to English questions from readers regularly.
To see whether your property is affected by these regulations, consult the various maps that identify flood zones in Laval that are linked to the city website.
Blog volunteers hope that Laval’s proposed regulations will affect properties so that maps created in 1995 can be used to determine which properties are at higher risk. Maps produced in 2006 and 2008 indicate many more properties in Laval at high risk for flooding, but residents say that later maps don’t take account of water control measures, like the Laval Dam.
Laval hasn’t yet released updated maps to show which properties fall within each flood zone.
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