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“I think they’re acting in good faith, but I don’t think it’s the No. 1 priority,” Côte-St-Luc’s mayor added of a promised environmental assessment.
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The mayors of Côte-St-Luc and Town of Mount Royal say the city of Montreal is finally getting serious about the extension of Cavendish Blvd.
Last month, the Plante administration voted in favour of a motion brought to the agglomeration council meeting by Côte-St-Luc Mayor Mitchell Brownstein and T.M.R. Mayor Peter Malouf, asking the city to issue a call for tenders in October for firms to conduct an environmental assessment of the impact of the project.
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The environmental assessment is a key step before any project can be brought to the province’s Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement (BAPE) for public hearings. The winning bids for the environmental assessment would be awarded at the beginning of next year, according to the resolution.
The mayors see this as a minor victory, as the Plante administration has committed publicly to advancing the file.
“I think they’re acting in good faith, but I don’t think it’s the No. 1 priority, and it should be,” Brownstein said. “We have it on the record, and it’s moving forward again; that’s the most important thing.”
Malouf agreed, and said the suburban municipalities will ensure the city remains committed to the extension project.
“I’m going to do my darnedest to make sure this continues to move forward,” he said.
The Cavendish extension is seen as crucial to alleviating congestion in the west end, as it would serve as an alternative to the Décarie Expressway and Décarie Blvd. The project would also include a public-transit component that could shuttle commuters from the Cavendish Mall in Côte-St-Luc to the Namur métro station in roughly five minutes. Cavendish is also important for current and future residential projects: the Royalmount development under construction in T.M.R., the Midtown housing project in St-Laurent and Côte-St-Luc’s planned redevelopments of the Cavendish Mall, Décarie Square and the Côte-St-Luc Shopping Centre.
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The extension of Cavendish would also give a much-needed access road to the hemmed-in Namur-Hippodrome site, a development planned around the areas of the old horserace track and the Namur métro station.
Abandoned in 2009 after 137 years of racing, the track was ceded by the Quebec government to the city of Montreal in 2017 under two conditions: that it would build an extension to Cavendish Blvd. to access the site, and that construction of the first housing units would begin in 2023.
Sophie Mauzerolle, the city of Montreal’s point person on mobility issues, said in a statement that a deal is being renegotiated between the city and province. The Cavendish extension will be part of the revised agreement, she said.
“Cavendish is a cornerstone of the development,” she said of the Namur-Hippodrome sector, which could accommodate 12,500 housing units, 6,000 of them on the site of the old track.
Not everyone shares the optimism about the project’s progress, however. St-Laurent borough mayor Alan DeSousa pointed out that the contracts for environmental impact studies were supposed to be awarded in 2023, so if they are only awarded next year, that means another year of delays.
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“The city has not been awake at the wheel to be able to respect their own schedule that they deposited at the BAPE a year and a half ago,” he said.
Pushing back the environmental impact studies means the project will likely not begin in 2027, which is what the city outlined in the analysis it submitted to the BAPE during the pre-project phase in 2022.
DeSousa added he’s concerned that during all these delays, money that has been earmarked for the extension has been spent on other city projects. Since 2015, the city has committed $84.9 million to the Cavendish extension in its capital-works budgets and another $11.5 million in its operating budgets. DeSousa wants assurances that money is still being held in reserve.
“We would like to see an accounting of what was actually spent,” he said. “This is important for the government of Quebec to know that six years later, the agreement is being respected. It’s important to neighbouring towns, and it’s important to all the people who are stuck in traffic on Décarie who are looking for a solution to be initiated. Clearly, someone at the city has taken their eye off the ball, and the Cavendish project isn’t being treated with the urgency it merits.”
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Malouf said the suburban towns are also concerned about the money issue.
“We’re pursuing an accounting; we’ve written letters and requested a meeting with the city of Montreal,” he said.
When asked about the funds, executive committee spokesperson Marikym Gaudreault referred the question to the general city of Montreal public relations office.
Speaking for the city, Guillaume Rivest said the total money spent on Cavendish from capital budgets was $2.6 million.
However, he said sums not spent in the capital budget aren’t automatically transferred to other projects.
DeSousa said he is not surprised that so little has been spent, and he wants assurances that the money is still available for the project.
“Since the transfer of the land in 2017, none of the money budgeted for this project has been spent, or very little,” he said. “They are doing everything within their power to avoid providing answers, because likely the answers would put them to shame.”
The city has made some progress on the Hippodrome development in recent months. In May, it named the first developer of the site for 250 rental units that will be built near the existing road network. Also in May, the city mandated a group of investors, developers and community groups to come up with a new business plan for the area. The Groupe d’accélération pour l’optimisation du projet de l’Hippodrome (GALOPH) consists of 15 members who were given eight months to come up with their plan.
Mauzerolle said the Cavendish extension will be integrated into the business plan. A new master plan for the project will be made public in the coming months, Rivest added.
jmagder@postmedia.com
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