Published July 3, 2024

Court rejects parking garage on former church site on Grande Allée

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

Peterblack@qctonline.com

Those unaware of a prolonged legal battle between a developer and Quebec City Hall might be curious to know why there is a huge grassy vacant lot on Grande Allée kitty-corner from the Concorde Hotel.

Last week, the dispute between developer Louis Lessard and the city over a proposed nine-storey parking garage reached a new stage, with the Quebec Superior Court rejecting Lessard’s claim the city had acted in bad faith by making zoning changes that prohibited the project.

The decision, rendered June 13 by Judge Jean-Louis Lemay, is the latest chapter in a saga dating back to December 2010, when Lessard purchased the long-abandoned Église Saint- Coeur-de-Marie. Thus ensued a back-and-forth between the city and Lessard over his plans to redevelop the church site. After the city rejected a reported nine different proposals for a multi-storey residential building, some incorporating parts of the existing church, Lessard sued the city for $12 million in damages in 2017. (He later dropped the suit). Meanwhile the church, built in 1920, was deteriorating, with critical roof damage, to the point Lessard was granted a permit to demolish the structure.

In 2019, the building – with distinctive neo-Byzantine architecture but no heritage pro- tection – was levelled and the lot cleared in preparation for a building project. Lessard went back to the drawing board and proposed the parking garage, which, he contended in the suit against the city, conformed to existing zoning laws.

The city subsequently made zoning changes in 2022 and 2023 to close a loophole allowing “parking and taxi stands” in the area comprising Lessard’s lot.

Lessard claimed the city made the changes to deliberately block his application for a building permit for the parking garage project.

In his ruling, the judge concluded Lessard had not proved he had a prima facie right to a building permit and furthermore, had not fully complied with the application process, including failure to pay the full $57,600 fee to the city.

The court also affirmed the changes to the zoning plan to ban parking structures were within the city’s justified rights to correct an error or oversight. It noted the urban planning committee had made similar changes in many other zones in the city, so Lessard could not claim he was the “victim of discriminatory treatment.”

Though Mayor Bruno Marchand had described the parking garage project as “something good for the 1970s,” the judge ruled there was no element of “a plot” by elected officials or civil servants against Lessard.

City councillors Catherine Vallières-Roland and Mélissa Coulombe-Leduc had been called as witnesses in the case.

Contacted by the QCT, Loik Lessard, son of the developer and a company official, said in an email, “We are in reflexion and we are analyzing our options.”

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