BRENDA O’FARRELL
The 1510 West

Like a hornet’s nest poked with a stick, the debate over the rate and breadth of development in Pointe Claire erupted into a swirl of barbs being exchanged among members of Pointe Claire council last week as elected officials gave final approval to the construction of two 13-storey apartment complexes to be built on St. Jean Blvd. north of Highway 40.

“There is no need to put 13 storeys on St. John’s,” said Pointe Claire Mayor Tim Thomas as he put forward his argument against allowing a proposal that would include 367 residential rental units in two towers on a lot on the northwest corner of the boulevard at Labrosse Avenue, just north of the Fairview shopping mall.

Pointe Claire has added more residential housing units in the last seven years “than all our neighbouring cities and boroughs put together,” Thomas said. “We have just been on steroids,” he added, referring to the rate of housing units added in the municipality compared with other cities in the West Island.

Thomas claims that more than half of all housing units built in the West Island in the last seven years – or 56 per cent –  have been in Pointe Claire. And in 2023 alone, despite a building freeze having been imposed on many parts of the municipality, 955 residential units were started and/or completed, with the mayor describing that figure as “more than all 14 demerged suburbs on the island of Montreal put together.”

Pointe Claire’s residential sector, he continued, has grown by 27 per cent since the 2016 census.

“Our poor city has been under deluge and has built like crazy,” he said as he read from a prepared statement. “Rents are not going down. We have not made more affordable housing. We do, however, have a lot more potholes, a lot more cars, a lot more housing, a lot more citizens, and a lot more stress on our infrastructure.

“Why isn’t anyone else on the West Island building like this?” he asked. “And why are we obliged to keep going at the rate we’re going at?”

In response, several councillors pushed back.

Councillor Brent Cowan highlighted how the project has already received approval for a grant from the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corp. guaranteeing the rental units will be offered at 10 to 20 per cent below the average market rate for the area and include 5½-room units for families.

“This particular project is balancing the issue of affordable housing,” Cowan said. “Yes. It is not going to be cheap,” he admitted, “but it is going to be cheaper than if we did nothing.”

“It may not be perfect for everyone,” councillor Kelly Thorstad-Cullen added. “It may be scary that we have change. But we must move forward, because it’s much better to move forward than sit and do nothing because it may not be perfect.”

Councillor Eric Stork also admitted the project is “not perfect,” but added it is the only project where the city has a signed deal with a private developer that guarantees lower rental rates.

“This deal is the best we are going to get,” Stork added.

But Thomas pressed his case, particularly against Cowan’s assertion that higher residential density rates will be imposed on Pointe Claire by the Commaunté métropolitaine de Montréal, the regional authority that sets development guidelines for 82 municipalities on and around the island of Montreal.

“A big myth about development,” Thomas said, “is that current development has all been pushed by higher levels of government and we have no choice but to accept it.”

The CMM’s density targets “don’t have the same legal weight as zoning bylaws,” the mayor asserted, before pointing out that the current residential density target for areas of Pointe Claire that are within one kilometre of the future REM light rail stations is 60 units per hectare, which is the minimum.

To put that in context, he went on to explain, the three-storey apartment buildings across the street from Pointe Claire city hall on St. Jean Blvd. at Douglas Shand Avenue include 258 units on 2.3 hectares of space, along with parking and green space. That represents a residential density of 112 units per hectare, nearly twice the minimum prescribed by the current CMM target.

Thomas conceded that new density targets that are currently being proposed and are undergoing consultations, where they are being met with fierce resistance, would set a new minimum of 200 units per hectare within a one-kilometre radius of the REM stations. That, he said, could be met with developments of no more than six storeys in height.

“The reality is that city council – not other levels of government – has chosen to develop Pointe Claire more than all our neighbours combined and with no overall plan,” Thomas said.

All members of council except Thomas voted to approve the project at St. Jean and Labrosse. In July, the council put forward a motion to remove the lot from the city’s ongoing development freeze. Last week’s vote ratified the move, effectively giving the developer a green light to build.

First imposed in February 2022, Pointe Claire’s development freeze – which is often referred to by its French name – Règlement de contrôle intérimaire, or RCI –  put a halt to building projects in several key areas of the city, including the parking lot area of the Fairview Pointe Claire shopping centre, where a massive development comprised of three high-rise towers has been proposed.

In April 2022, a majority of council voted to exclude the Fairview parking lot from the freeze only to reverse course a month later, and re-introduce it back into the development freeze.

RCIs are a relatively new tool provided to municipalities by the Quebec government to allow them to pause development in order to recast their planning bylaws to reflect the scope and scale of development within their territories. Pointe Claire’s development freeze had been slated to be lifted at the end of this summer, when it was scheduled to adopts its new planning bylaws. With that deadline now passed, there is still no firm date as to when the freeze will be lifted.