BRENDA O’FARRELL
The 1510 West

The recently released draft of the new Montreal regional flood map is raising alarm bells across the Greater Montreal area, but nowhere in the West Island are they sounding louder than in Pierrefonds-Roxboro.

The new map almost doubles the number of buildings identified as being in flood risk zones to just over 15,500 – this represents almost 20,000 households – potentially negatively affecting $9.9 billion in property values across the vast territory that is the Communauté métropolitaine de Montréal. On the island of Montreal, Pierrefonds-Roxboro is subject to the biggest impact, says the borough’s mayor Jim Beis.

The borough has still to calculate the total value of the property affected, but Beis estimates it is easily in the billion-dollar range.

“It has a major impact on us,” said Beis in an interview with The 1510 West, describing the area in the borough that is now included in the risk zones to be 70-per-cent larger than in the previous delineation of flood lines.

The draft map, which was unveiled Sept. 30, includes a wide swath of properties along the various waterfronts in the CMM’s territory, which includes 82 municipalities on and around the island of Montreal. In Pierrefonds-Roxboro, it now includes areas that encompass not only houses, but schools, municipal buildings, a seniors’ home and areas that have never flooded before, Beis said.

The map is based on what the CMM refers to as the “new regulatory framework” that reflects the guidelines dictated by provincial authorities.

Since the draft was unveiled, Beis has held a meeting in the borough to answer questions from homeowners who are slated to possibly be included in zones of flood risk. Anyone who has a mortgage due for renewal is worried, Beis said. Homeowners also questioned how this will affect their insurance coverage.

Beis has joined the City of Montreal to send a memorandum to provincial authorities with a number of recommendations. Among the key request, he said, was a plea to hold off approving the draft map to allow time to fully analyze how the changes will impact homeowners, and discuss ways to allow municipal authorities to find ways to mitigate these impacts.

For example, Beis explained how his borough tested and invested in a number of modular mobile systems that can be deployed rapidly when spring flood threats are heightened that eliminate the need to sandbag areas, a process that is slow, costly and require many hours of labour. Whether the province will continue to cover such expenses under its Emergency Measures budget in future is not clear, he said.

Cutline:

The shaded areas of the draft regional flood map highlight the parts of Pierrefonds-Roxboro that are at risk of flooding.

Credit:

Commaunauté métropolitaine de Montréal