News

Project on the former Marianopolis College site

No more compromises for Mount Royal

Montreal, May 4, 2009

Letter of opinion – Les amis de la montagne

Former Marianopolis College site: No more compromises for Mount Royal

After more than 20 years of advocacy efforts by citizens and associations such as Les amis de la montagne to obtain the protection of Mount Royal, the city of Montreal finally announced the creation of the Mount Royal Protection and Enhancement Plan adopted by council last week, stating that: “Never in its history, has Mount Royal been so well protected.”

Tonight, citizens are asked to participate in the first of three nights of public consultations concerning a vast residential project planned for the magnificent site of the former Marianopolis College, located within the Mount Royal Historic and Natural District. This project derogates from the mountain’s protection plan and the city’s urban planning by-laws with regards to use, density, height, volume, allowable installation on the site and adequate protection of vegetation.

Citizens are being subjected to a remarkably short timeframe to prepare comments and opinions for a proceeding on a multi-million dollar project that has all the appearances of provincial and municipal pre-approval.

The astonishing contradiction between our provincial and municipal leaders’ creation of a master protection and enhancement plan for Mount Royal coupled with its decision to push an overtly oversized if not outright unacceptable project through public consultation is a sad indictment of our provincial and municipal leaders’ weakness when faced with making the right decision.

This dramatic abyss between policy and practice is also an affront to citizens and to true democracy. Rather than debate the very nature of the project, we are forced to criticize its minutiae. As citizens, we are left to defend the mountain in the face of this political ambivalence, earning nothing more than the title of antagonists or worse yet, “immobilistes” or those who fight change for the sake of fighting change.

The provincial ministry of culture and the municipal administration have demonstrated an historic unwillingness to live by their political undertakings and regulatory guidelines as manifested in a long line of important projects they failed to protect. This political “immobilisme” is no longer acceptable – the Mount Royal Protection and Enhancement Plan is supposed to announce a new day for the mountain and our community.

And so Les amis de la montagne and the community will spend the next several weeks pouring over plans and documentation as part of the consultation process. But are we being lured into thinking that our only possible reaction is to challenge elements of the project being presented, as opposed to the project itself?

Public monies have been invested into commenting upon and shaping the proposed project, which in its current iteration seems to comply with the criteria of the various requested studies. The project, however, does not comply with the current zoning for the site, the starting point and very essence of the nature of the project, nor does it abide by the communities’ desire to maintain the current, limited amount of green space on the mountain.

The project is neither appropriate, nor worthy of the former Marianopolis College site and is sadly, a reminder of the adjacent “Ferme sous les noyers” project of 1999. The Ferme sous les noyers was a very beautiful property located on the southern flank of Mount Royal, located off Atwater and Saint-Sulpice, with a greystone building in the midst of a terraced garden that hugged the mountain’s topography and that could be discovered only by walking through the property, a hidden treasure in the heart of the city.

A massively intense residential development carried out without respect for the historic character of the site completely transformed the landscape to the point where, in 2003, the site was unequivocally removed from within the limits of the Mount Royal protected territory decreed by the Gouvernement du Québec. Instead, a plaque was installed on the greystone building, reminding us all that once upon a time, this property, as is the case of the former Marianopolis site, was part of the Sulpicians seigniorial domain!

The bitter taste of déjà-vu is bubbling to the surface of this proposed project for the former Marianopolis site, a site that is the last remaining institutional domain of the Sulpicians within the Mount Royal Historic and Natural District.

The municipal administration will receive the opinions of the public and the expression of the Office de consultation publique de Montréal and make its determination which will be endorsed or not by the Ministry of Culture under the provisions of the decree which partially governs the mountain.

If enough members of the community express their viewpoints in writing or in person to the city of Montreal and the Ministry of Culture, perhaps this time we can garner the influence needed to end the cycle of poor decision-making for the mountain.

The Mount Royal Protection and Enhancement Plan has been a community-driven effort that provincial and municipal officials have appeared to embrace. What exactly is stopping us today to use whatever measures and means at our disposal to ensure, once and for all, the coherent, effective and unequivocal protection of Mount Royal?

Peter A. Howlett, C.M.

President

Les amis de la montagne