Nouveau campus de l'UdM

[rosey12387]

I don’t have anything particularly against the U de M Outremont rail yards project but I do think that a) the yards could be better utilized in a more residential capacity and b) that the addition of institutional infrastructure could be of more benefit somewhere else in the city.

 

The area I propose the project to be located is the following (in red, with land to redeveloped in blue):

 

 

For the Habitation Jeanne-Mance portion, I would propose keeping the towers for seniors but demolishing all 260 single-family residences. Those dwellings could easily be replaced by a newer development with more units in another part of the city (perhaps as part of an almost fully residential redevelopment of the Outremont rail yards). A good portion of the Habitation Jeanne-Mance is scattered surface parking lots that really don’t belong downtown. Taking away the parking and the low rise buildings would leave a lot of room for the science campus’ development, but leaves a good amount of green space – perfect for a university campus.

 

 

As for the southern portion below rue de Broisbriand, the area currently lacks a central purpose, has a lot of available land to be developed and like the HJM portion is serviced by an extremely underutilised metro station. While this area is technically part of the Quartier des Spectacles, it contains none of the 24 existing sites on the Quartier des Spectacles walking tour and none of its developable land is currently slated for any Q de S projects. Not to mention, there is enough vacant land and underutilized buildings that need to get redeveloped between Philips Square and St-Dominique that this area to the east would likely not receive much attention anyways for at least a decade if not more.

 

 

Placing the new campus (which will be heavily sciences-related) in this location would also have the added benefit of being adjacent to the new CHUM mega-hospital and the resulting Quartier de la Santé, including the U de M’s planned new ESPUM pavilion.

 

[Malek]

C'est une très bonne idée d'optimiser ces terrains là. Mais est-ce que le Campus est la bonne chose à implanter là??

 

Peut-être.

 

Est-ce que ça serait mieux d'avoir du résidentiel à la place (plus dense), à voir.

 

Une chose est sûre, il va falloir que cet abcès soit crevé un jour ou l'autre.

[Cataclaw]

Moi aussi je travail sur une vision pour le secteur des HLM Jeanne-Mance!

 

À venir!

 

Mais en effet c'est une bonne idée de refaire ce secteur... il en a besoin!

[pedepy]

j'ai tjrs imagine qu'un jour les condos et lofts de "luxe" qui seront construits aux abords du QdS "deborderaient" sur ce site, et que ca donnerais lieu a un paquet de manifs du frapru et bla bla bla..

[rosey12387]

I really do think this vision has a considerable amount of merit, so I’ve created a list of pragmatic points to explain why and hopefully spur some more comments/debate.

 

 

Why here?

 

1.Firstly, it’s one of the very few opportunities available to optimize the lands of the Habitations Jeanne-Mance. We all know that there’s likely a greater chance of seeing hell freeze over than of seeing any commercial or non-subsidized housing development built on the HJM grounds.

 

2. Secondly, while I certainly see the importance and the value of creating density in the form of dense residential (both luxury and otherwise) in the downtown core, there is a geographic reality that must be considered. Taking a closer look at the amount of land/projects downtown that are currently slated for residential development or that could be good choices for residential development we can see that these plots in the eastern section of the Quartier des Spectacles are amongst a large list of possibilities, many of which are in even better-suited neighbourhoods.

 

Such areas include: the Gare Windsor area, the SRC site, Shaughnessy Village, Rene-Levesque between Guy and Drummond, l'îlot Bishop-Crescent, Faubourg des Recollets, Vieux-Montreal, the western and south western areas of the Quartier des Spectacles, the Quartier International, Paper Hill (the area nestled between the western portions of the Quartier des Spectacles and the Quartier International), Faubourgs Quebec, Griffintown, Quartier Bonaventure, the intersection of de la Montagne and de Maisonneuve, Gare Viger...

 

3. Thirdly, the impact a student population could have on the area around the Saint-Laurent metro. A few thousand students would add vibrancy to the area. They would help increase commuter traffic to a very under-utilized downtown metro station, giving the station a raison-d’être; something that is not a problem with any of the other downtown stations. It would increase foot traffic on that section of Sainte-Catherine as well as nearby Saint-Laurent (which would thus help spur local business development) and attract more people to the Bibliotheque Nationale.

 

 

Why not the Outremont rail yards?

 

1. Firstly, the mayor has made it very clear the city is having trouble attracting families. I think it wouldn’t be hard to argue that downtown is an area where many families are not interested in living. The Outremont rail yards however, nestled between Outremont, Ville Mont-Royal, Park-Extension, and the Petite-Patrie, and in close proximity to Mile-End would be an ideal location for roughly 2000 housing units (a number quoted by Henry Aubin of the Gazette). At an average of 3.5 residents per dwelling (assuming development is family-oriented) that’s an additional 7000 Montrealers. That’s more people than the populations of the on-island municipalities of Senneville, Baie D’Urfé, Montreal West, Montreal East, and Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue and about the same amount of people as Hampstead.

 

2. Secondly, there is a strong push for an increase in the number of HLMs in the city. If 25% of the Outremont rail yards dwellings were HLMs that would be 500 family residences, 240 more family residences than at the HJM.

 

3. Thirdly, making the Outremont rail yards purely residential would be a complementary fit to the surrounding area. Take a look at the CLC’s project of Currie Barracks in Calgary.

Similarly designed homes would complement the houses in Outremont to the south quite well and the increased number of residences would have a very positive impact on the development of Van Horne in its current form.

[Malek]

Good points.

 

But some counter-arguments just to stir the pot and for debates sake.

 

1) I'm all for adding vibrancy, the reality is as you've seen in the other thread, some people at the city hall don't want that, they have killed the nearby redlite district and are enforcing ridiculous bias toward nightlife activities (again yesterday a major event was shutdown in the downtown).

 

2) Forget about moving the HLM from downtown to the north part of the city (if thats what you were implying)... one of the revindcation of the FRAPRU and "association des BS) is that poor people also deserve to live downtown, that poverty shouldnt be brushed outside of the center (which is ridiculous but whatever).

 

3) that new area would be a hard sell if its simply connected to the existing Beaumont street, that street is a disaster and would need incentives for these hangars to move elsewhere (to industrial parks), I can't believe that residential units will sell that easily to families within the poorest neighbourhood in Montréal, Québec and Canada... without a major overahaul of existing infrastructure.

 

That area was a fringe (Beaumont), and it needs to be transformed from a low denisty industrial fringe to low-med density residential area with lots of green and clean streets.

[JFrosty]

2) Forget about moving the HLM from downtown to the north part of the city (if thats what you were implying)... one of the revindcation of the FRAPRU and "association des BS) is that poor people also deserve to live downtown, that poverty shouldnt be brushed outside of the center (which is ridiculous but whatever).

 

T'as vraiment un don pour avoir l'air de détester tout ce qui fait en-dessous de 40 000$ par année.

[OursNoir]

T'as vraiment un don pour avoir l'air de détester tout ce qui fait en-dessous de 40 000$ par année.

 

Si je ne peux me payer une Ferrari, je ne vais tout de même pas demander à Ferrari qu'ils commencent à vendre des modèles moins cher juste pour me satisfaire d'en avoir une, et m'offusquer si on me prend pas au sérieux.

 

Je vais acheter une voiture banale comme tout le monde.

 

Et ça s'applique aussi au logis, si je ne peux me payer un logement au centre-ville, je vais habiter ailleurs, et pas demander à ce qu'on me fournisse un logement abordable à cet endroit.

[JFrosty]

Je vois pas pourquoi le centre-ville devrait être exclusivement offert aux riches. C'est un morceau de terre. À part la valeur qu'on veut lui donner, il n'en a aucune. C'est pas écrit sur le sol que c'est un terrain qui vaut cher.

 

Si on tasse toujours les moins nantis, ça fait des quartiers pauvres ou ghettos, contre qui on bitch de toute façon après.

[JCC-Fromthere]

Je vois pas pourquoi le centre-ville devrait être exclusivement offert aux riches. C'est un morceau de terre. À part la valeur qu'on veut lui donner, il n'en a aucune. C'est pas écrit sur le sol que c'est un terrain qui vaut cher.

 

???

 

Comment est-ce que tu crois que la valeur des terrains/condos est etablie, arbitrairement? C'est l'offre et la demande. Si le terrain/condo est au centre ville, la demande est plus grande et le prix est plus eleve (ou, l'offre est plus limitee, ca revient au meme). Si la ville force le developement de condos moins cher, il y a perte economique (de quelque facon que tu le calcule), qui devra etre absorbee par les taxes/impots, devenant effectivement un subvention des moins fortunes qui vivent en ville.

 

Ceci etant dit, il y a des justifications pour que ce soit fait ainsi; entre autre, la mixite sociale fonctionne mieux que la ghettoisation (Paris et ses banlieues est un bon exemple de ce qui doit etre evite)