By Joel Goldenberg
The Suburban

The Association of Suburban Municipalities is officially filing before the Quebec Municipal Commission its opposition to an island-wide agglomeration $20 million borrowing bylaw in relation to the proposed Namur-Hippodrome development, according to a resolution passed at a Feb. 10 Côte St. Luc council meeting.

Councillor Dida Berku, who introduced the resolution, explained that the mayors of demerged municipalities met Feb. 10 to mandate a law firm to file the opposition. The $20 million is to be used to acquire properties around the Namur-Hippodrome project, which the councillor said is actually the responsibility of the City of Montreal and not the entire agglomeration.

The next step for the ASM would be to proceed to Quebec Superior Court if necessary.

Last month, Berku quoted an agglomeration summary as saying that the $20 million was to be borrowed because “land acquisitions will be required to ensure mobillity and the opening up of the area bordered by the CN and CP rail lines, and the Décarie Expressway.”

The summary also noted that acquisitions could “enable the development of Cavendish Boulevard, the development of mass transit and the development of the projected bicycle network….This will make it easier to accommodate the new 20,000-unit real estate development.”

Berku told the January CSL meeting that “if any level of government, be it federal, provincial or agglomeration, is going to spend money on the Quartier Namur-Hippodrome, in our view, it should not be spent without Cavendish” for a link.

“It should be part of that overall spending program. We know the City of Montreal put aside close to $100 million for Cavendish and now it’s been redirected to Namur-Hippodrome-Cavendish-Jean Talon, basically redirecting it to Jean Talon.” n