BRENDA O’FARRELL
The 1510 West

It could be argued that the steady and consistent campaign to save Fairview Forest – with its weekly small-scale protests along the edge of the wooded green space for the past four years – has finally struck what might be a motivational chord, as two members of Pointe Claire council are now promising action.

Mayor Tim Thomas earlier this week requested a special meeting of council to vote on a motion to expand the formal consultation process the city has engaged in as it prepares its new urban plan to include an additional consultation session focused on privately and publicly held green spaces, including Fairview Forest.

The meeting for council to vote on the measure could be held as early as next Tuesday.

Meanwhile, councillor Eric Stork is planning to put forward a separate motion at the November council meeting to mandate the city to prepare a formal evaluation of the forest located just west of the Fairview Pointe Claire shopping centre, which is currently included in development freezes imposed by both the city and the Communauté métropolitaine de Montréal.

Both motions would require support of a majority of council to move forward.

“I would like to see an expression from the Pointe Claire community on green spaces,” Thomas said in an interview with The 1510 West.

The public consultation process designed to guide and inform updates of the city’s urban plan has side-stepped public discussion of the fate of the woodland, with Thomas calling that “a glaring omission.”

As for Stork, he said the first order of business should be to determine the value of the green space.

“I want a proper evaluation of the cost,” said Stork in an interview with The 1510 West. “What is it worth?”

Stork, who admittedly is skeptical of the financial viability of preserving the land from development as it is located at the doorstep of a REM light commuter rail station on the north side of Highway west of St. Jean Blvd., said it’s time for action. The evaluation, he said, should include an environmental assessment, the city’s legal options if it opts to expropriate, other options for financing and an assessment of opportunity costs of not developing the land.

Both moves by elected officials in Pointe Claire come weeks after members of the Save Fairview Forest group, a grassroots movement of residents from Pointe Claire and the surrounding area, launched an email campaign aimed at the city’s council urging them to pronounce themselves on whether they favour preserving the forest.

Geneviève Lussier, a spokesperson for the Save Fairview Forest Group, said she is pleased with the moves being announced, adding that the recent flurry of emails sent to elected officials were meant to remind them of the promise they had made to protect 30 per cent of the city’s territory as green space, a target set by all levels of government, including the CMM, provincial and federal.

Currently, only 9 per cent of Pointe Claire’s territory is protected green space. Preserving the 43-acre forest would still leave the city with a green space deficit, well short of the 30-per-cent target. In fact, Lussier said, if all the natural spaces left on the island of Montreal were saved, it would still fall short of the target.

“There is very little social acceptability to cutting down a forest in an urban setting, even half a forest, especially in a place that is going to see such an influx of people” Lussier said, referring to the proposed development for the parking lot area of Fairview mall.

“Downtown West Island needs a central park,” Lussier added. And there is no better place for it than Fairview Forest.”

Stork said he will present a resolution directing Pointe Claire’s administration to commission an evaluation of the land, as well as an environmental assessment of the woodland, an outline of the implications of expropriation and the related opportunity costs of not moving forward with development. As Stork put it: “an assessment of all the variables.”

He called the city’s inaction to date on this issue “Irresponsible,” pointing to Thomas’s support for preserving the forest, without taking any steps to determine the viability of the option.

“It’s irresponsible to say ‘I want to save it, I want to save it,’ and not do anything about it,” Stork said.

“We can’t just stick our head in the sand. I am coming clean on this issue,” he added. “We have to address this.”

Earlier in the week, councillor Bruno Tremblay expressed his views on how the discussions about the fate of the woodland always focus on the purely financial issues.

“I am disappointed with the narrow focus of the question, which is unilaterally economic,” Tremblay said during the Oct. 1 Pointe Claire council meeting.

“That perspective is an old one,” he explained, adding: “It’s the way we used to think about things. We used to think strictly about the economics of these matters.

“As the storms that are ravaging the east coast – from Florida up to us now – this is becoming a societal issue. It’s becoming a problem.

“The federal government has maintained that we are undergoing a climate emergency. You act when there is an emergency,” Tremblay continued.

“There are legal avenues that are taking shape in this province that allows cities to be able to protect some of the green heritage that they have. That has to be included in the discussion.”

Tremblay issued a call to action: “I think it’s time – here at this table and in the audience and in Pointe Claire generally – those of us who make up the social fabric of this particular city, that we get together and start thinking creatively about how we are going to have to be able to save these kinds of areas.”

Lussier said any evaluation of the forest should also include a briefing on how recent amendments to Quebec’s Bill 39, which gives municipalities greater powers to protect natural environments, can impact moves to save the forest.