By Robert Frank
If Pointe Claire proves unable to comply with the Montreal Metropolitan Community’s (CMM) new master urban development plan (PMAD) passed June 9, it risks having Montreal or another higher authority unilaterally impose its own vision of densification and intensification on the leafy Montreal suburb, warned Councilor Brent Cowan.
“Any community that does not come up with its planning program by that deadline, it will be done for them,” explained Cowan, who announced June 11 that he intends to run for mayor in the upcoming municipal election, November 2.
“Higher levels will rewrite our planning program for us.”
Pointe Claire implemented a moratorium on virtually all development in 2022 soon after the election of incumbent Mayor Tim Thomas in November 2021. The city initially committed to a two-year process to come up with a new urban development plan, and Thomas subsequently suggested expediting public consultations.
“I would like to expedite the consultative process,” Thomas stated in an interview, February 22, 2022. “I want it this fall, not next fall.”
Thomas claimed at a subsequent city council meeting that he had been “misquoted” about accelerating municipal deliberations. The city has since failed to come up with its own urban development plan nearly a year after its original, self-imposed summer 2024 deadline.
“During the winter of 2023, I asked these questions because I could see that we were not going to make that deadline,” Cowan recalled.
Now that the CMM has passed its PMAD, the Montreal Agglomeration has two years to amend its zoning rules accordingly.
Cowan suggested that Pointe Claire residents have more to gain if they retain control of the new zoning rules that apply to the entire Montreal region, rather than letting others dictate them. He highlighted opportunities to foster environment-friendly construction within walking distance of the city’s mass-transit hubs—known as transport-oriented development.
“The law allows the city to determine site planning and architectural integration,” he observed. “Even if a [proposed] project conforms to zoning that we will be obliged to comply with, such as a high-rise apartment that no one wants there, if we adhere properly to the law, then we can say ‘No, until you do this, that and the other thing.’ And then get the developer to modify his project so that it becomes more socially, environmentally and architecturally acceptable. We can create that power for ourselves now.”
“The current mayor isn’t doing his job,” Cowan suggested. “He’s more concerned with selfies. That approach didn’t work.”
Photo: handout
