BRENDA O’FARRELL
The 1019 Report

In an unexpected move, Pointe Claire council has proposed a motion to remove a lot from the city’s ongoing development freeze with the aim to allow two 13-storey residential buildings to go up on St. Jean Blvd. north of Highway 40.

Citing the need to move quickly to address the widespread housing crisis that has seen the price of homes and rents rise rapidly across the country in the last few years, Pointe Claire councillors said it could not wait for the city’s urban development plan to be completed, effectively approving a proposal that would see 367 rental units be built at the southwest corner of Labrosse Ave. and St. Jean Blvd., north of the Fairview Pointe Claire shopping centre.

“There is a housing crisis in Canada that we have to respond to,” said councillor Kelly Thorstad-Cullen as the motion was put forward at the July 2 council meeting.

“It is not an option for us to say we are going to do no more development,” Thorstad-Cullen continued.

The move sparked harsh criticism from Pointe Claire Mayor Tim Thomas, who condemned the action before the city has had a chance to put forward its development plan following an extensive public consultation process.

“I oppose this amendment,” Thomas said, reading from a prepared statement during the council meeting. “I don’t believe we should be taking any more properties out of the (development freeze) until public consultations and the revisions of our urban plan are completed.”

“For the past eight years, our urban planning has been decided for and by developers,” Thomas continued. “Changes to our bylaws have been driven by those who have best access to city hall and have gotten what they want on a case-by-case basis.

“There has never been an overall plan that takes account of our housing needs, our infrastructure capacity or the quality of life of our entire community,” he said.

“We can all see the strains on our infrastructure ­– from the traffic on St. John’s, to the brown water and reduced water pressure in Valois, to the frequent blackouts in Cedar Park,” Thomas said. “We can also see neighbourhoods which have failed to live up to our planning programs with regards to green spaces and first-floor commercial spaces for residents. This has to change.”

In response, Thorstad-Cullen said the majority of council has listened to what citizens have said during the consultation process, claiming: “And there are many aspects in this project specifically that are responding to what we’re being asked for.”

“It is in line with what we are planning to do with our planning bylaws,” Thorstad-Cullen added. “It is checking all the boxes of what citizens have told us.”

Thomas took issue with Thorstad-Cullen’s reasoning, arguing that it is not up to council members to interpret what they have heard via the consultation process in a haphazard manner. Rather, they should wait for the consultants hired by the town to convey the results of the consultation process to the city’s urban planning professionals, who will, in turn, formulate an overarching urban planning proposal, which could then be approved by council and applied to all proposals submitted to the city.

“What we have to have is a coherent organized plan that reflects what the citizens have told us, and then use that plan in its application to subsequent projects,” Thomas said during the council meeting.

Councillor Eric Stork added his voice in support of removing the lot from the building freeze, saying all 367 units in the two buildings planned will be rental units, which will be priced at 15-per-cent below the average market rate for the area, determined by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.

The building will include 3½- and 5½-room units to accommodate families, with rents for smaller units receiving 10-per-cent rental rate reductions, while larger units receiving 20-per-cent rental subsidies, for a minimum of 16 years.

Stork added that council was merely putting forward a notice of motion to remove the lot from the development freeze, and that public consultations on the project will be held in either August or September, after council votes next month to ratify the move.

In an interview Monday, Thomas said the city’s administration brought the proposed project to council for approval with concerns about possible legal action from the developer against the city, claiming the project, which had obtained subsidies from the CMHC, had already passed a number of hurdles in the approval process when the development freeze was imposed, putting it on hold.

First imposed in February 2022, Pointe Claire’s development freeze – which is often referred to by its French name – Règlement de contrôle intérimaire, or RCI –  put a halt to building projects in several key areas of the city, including the parking lot area of the Fairview Pointe Claire shopping centre, where a massive development comprised of thee high-rise towers has been proposed; the adjacent Fairview Forest; Pointe Claire Village; Valois Village; as well as at Pointe Claire Plaza at St. Jean Blvd. and Highway 20; and various stretches of Lakeshore Rd. and Hymus Blvd.

In April  2022, a majority of council voted to exclude the Fairview parking lot from the freeze only to reverse course a month later, and re-introduce it back into the development freeze.

RCIs are a relatively new tool provided to municipalities by the Quebec government to allow them to pause development in order to recast their planning bylaws to reflect the scope and scale of development within their territories. Pointe Claire’s development freeze is slated to be lifted once council adopts its new planning bylaws, expected to be unveiled some time later this year.