By Joel Goldenberg
The Suburban

The Plante administration has decided to buy land from the technology firm Hypertec, located near Trudeau Airport, for over $30 million. As a result, wetlands and urban forests at the Technoparc in St. Laurent will be preserved and the boundaries of the Sources Nature Park will be expanded.

“Thanks to the pressure from Ensemble Montréal and the St. Laurent team, the lands of the Sources Nature Park will be protected,” St.Laurent Mayor Alan DeSousa stated. Mayor Valérie Plante told a press conference that “thanks to an important collaboration with the Hypertec company, the City of Montreal will acquire and protect the equivalent of 15 soccer fields in the Parc-nature des Sources.”

As reported by The Suburban‘s Dan Laxer last year, DeSousa had pressed the Plante administration, through a series of amendments he presented to Montreal city council, to commit to its promise to expand the boundary of the nature park.

Hypertec had announced at the time that, as a result of public pressure, it would sell the land to the city for the price it originally paid. DeSousa, in 2023, described the proposal as “elegant” as the alternative site Hypertec was seeking for its facility was in a part of the Technoparc located in St. Laurent. The Mayor, last year, also praised the company for its plans for a green building.

The conservation group Technoparc Oiseau rejoiced at the news and congratulated the city.

“This action – the result of citizen, scientific and union mobilization – constitutes a major victory for conservation,” the organization stated. “Today marks a remarkable step towards the near future where the entirety of the Sources Nature Park, including all remaining federal and private lands, will be fully protected and restored, for the benefit of all. We would like to emphasize that this collaborative work must continue to protect the rich biodiversity of this site. We particularly encourage the Canadian federal government to become more involved in protecting this space. Indeed, while we applaud the recent listing of the monarch butterfly as an endangered species, we would like to point out that the most effective way to preserve this species is to protect its habitats, including the Monarch Field.” n