Does Montreal need a green belt?

[MTLskyline]

As Greater Montreal grows, both demographically and physically, public officials will soon have to decide whether or not suburban development should be constrained. In other words, do you believe a "green belt" is needed?

 

If you do believe in a green belt, what should be the limits?

 

If not, what are your reasons for opposing such a policy?

[Cataclaw]

Greenbelts are usually quite successful, so yes, i am in favor of one for Montreal.

 

Greenbelts provide green space for people to enjoy, they reduce sprawl, encourage high density and save our natural environment.

 

The problem is when the greenbelt area is not properly selected. If the belt is too narrow for instance, development will just happen on the other side, even farther away, thus defeating the purpose.

 

In the south shore, the Greenbelt line is practically laid out for us already : Autoroute 30!

[Maisonneuve]

Greenbelt would be good...if the 30 marks the beginning of the greenbelt, places like Otterburn Park and St.Julie will be just inside of the belt, in the green belt itself.

[Malek]

Absolutely not. Montreal doesn't need one, we already have enough natural barriers, a greenbelt would just be overkill for our shaky real estate market.

[Cataclaw]

There's enough infill space to build for decades. We don't need to spread out and build more Sainte-Julies.

[Malek]

Let's build the infills and more Sainte-Julies, a greenbelt will hurt both. We don't have the huge influx of immigrants, nor the birthrate, nor the vibrant job creation economy, nor the attraction to compensate for the handicap a greenbelt would create.

[pedepy]

j'suis d'accord sur le fait que la region comporte assez de barrieres naturelles pour freiner le developement. du moins, jusqu'a maintenant. peut-etre qu'un jour une sorte de green belt sera envisageable.

 

on fait quand meme bien, en terme de densite, avec presque 49% de la population habitant la ville centre, sur un territoire inferieur a 400km carre. compare a d'autre villes, qui ont sur des territoires de leur ville centre ou equivalent, beaucoup moins: philadelphie 28%, san francisco 25%, boston 16%, atlanta 15% ...

 

et puis, comme je l'ai deja dit avant, c'est assez incroyable a montreal le peu de distance a faire pour aboutir sur des terrains non seulement vagues, mais sauvages. quand je reviens de chez ma cousine a terrebonne, en descendant la 19, on voit droit devant des kilometres de terres vierges, avec en toile de fond, le mont royal et les tours du centre-ville, que l'on voit aussi bien que depuis l'est de la ville. le tout est surement le resultat d'un jeu des denivelations, mais quand meme !

 

et pourtant, a peine 10 minutes plus tard (sans traffic), on traverse le pont qui debouche sur papineau, et aussitot le contraste de densite est frappant ..!

[Habsfan]

NO green belt is needed for Montreal. Contrary to most other North American cities, Montreal is not spread out as far away from the city center.

 

Other reasons such as those brought up by Malek and Pedepy should be enough to forget about the idea of a green belt in Montreal.

 

In any case, we already have a green belt in this city. It's called the St-Lawrence river!

[Cataclaw]

I'm still not clear on how a green belt would "create an economic handicap" like Malek proposes.

 

A greenbelt would naturally leave an immense area open for development. Areas that are of little interest would most likely be sealed off, not the other way around, so this fear of economic pressure is mostly unjustified.

 

As for the Saint-Lawrence River... that didn't stop growth from spilling over into the shores.

[Habsfan]

People consider Quartier Dix30 to be far, yet it's not even 12KM's from downtown Montreal. I wouldn't consider that to be sprawling out to the boonies just yet! And that's the limit of the south-eastern suburbs. Beyond that there isn't much!

 

The north shore and the western suburbs(st-Lazare, hudson) are a completely different story. Most developments are at least 30 if not 40 KM's away from downtown.