construction

AFFORDABLE HOUSING: A new way of project development to reduce costs 

Nelson Sergerie, LJI Journalist

GASPÉ – The Gaspésie-Îles-de-la-Madeleine Collective Housing Resource Group is testing a new approach to building collective housing projects in an effort to save money. The Quartier du havre of the Habitations de la montagne project aims to construct 84 housing units built near the Quebec Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAPAQ) offices, on the montée de Sandy Beach in Gaspé. 

The project has already secured funding from both the government of Quebec and the federal government’s Affordable Housing Program. 

What sets this project apart is that the contractor has already been chosen before the end of the plans and specifications process. “Traditionally, for the past 30 years, the contractor has been chosen at the end of the process during a traditional call for tenders. In this case, the contractor was chosen much earlier so that he could participate in the planning with the professionals on the project,” explains the director of the resource group, Ambroise Henry. 

Marcel Charest et fils, a company from Saint-Pascal in the Bas-Saint-Laurent region, was selected from six companies that participated in a call for tenders for services. 

“By arriving at the beginning of the planning and construction of the plans and specifications, the contractor can offer its input, bring his expertise, and can ensure that all the professionals find solutions to build a real estate complex where we will save costs instead of being changed after a call for tenders and modifying plans. That can make a big difference, in our opinion,” says Mr. Henry who is enthusiastic about the recommended formula. 

The process is expected to be more effective than traditional performance-based estimates. 

“Even in terms of performance and criteria, it will be part of the discussions to make decisions on the various elements. It’s a little more advanced than the performance specifications,” notes Mr. Henry. 

There were concerns that construction costs per unit could reach as high as $800,000. 

“We think that by working this way, we’ll bring it into a slightly more acceptable range in the sense that when we have a contractor who responds to a call for tenders, he has to take into account a lot of risk elements. By having it from the start, we’ll eliminate certain risk areas. We have to do the process to see if it’s effective,” explains Mr. Henry. 

The group is aiming for a construction cost of under $500,000 per unit. 

“We’re taking all the paths to get there. Experience will tell us,” says the director, who points out that this is the group’s biggest project in 40 years of existence. 

Les Habitations de la montagne will be housing for all types of residents. If all goes well, construction should begin in 2025, with an inauguration in 2026. 

The Federal and Quebec governments are covering 80% of the project’s cost, with the remainder coming from the municipal level. 

The town of Gaspé has provided the land for the project, as well as technical assistance and a tax credit worth approximately $8 million. 

With an estimated construction cost of $500,000 per unit, the total value of the project is approximately $42 million. 

The organization has about fifteen projects in Gaspésie-Îles-de-la-Madeleine, with funding in all the region’s MRCs. 

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ESSB partners in launching Construction Equipment Operator course

Nelson Sergerie, LJI Journalist

GASPÉ – The Eastern Shores School Board and the Chic Chocs School Service Centre will be the third in Quebec to offer the Construction Equipment Operator course at the start of the 2025 school year. 

The two organizations have obtained approval from the Quebec government to offer this training, which has been available since 2019 in Sainte-Anne-des-Monts through the Chic-Chocs, in partnership with the Navigateurs School Service Centre in Lévis, and since 2021 by Eastern Shores in New Carlisle, in collaboration with the Littoral School Service Centre on the North Shore. “It’s a very attractive program for our youth, and it’s a program that’s in high demand given the shortage of personnel in the construction sector,” says the interim director of the Chic-Chocs, Josée Synnott. 

 “It’s excellent news for our school board because it’s a permanent card. It’s a very appealing card. The demand is there to graduate many young people, who won’t have to leave the region to take the training. Companies are also asking us to train young people,” says Denise Simoneau, Director of Eastern Shores. 

Previously, the training was only offered in Quebec City or the South Shore of Montreal. At Eastern Shores, about sixty young people have been waiting to access the training. 

“It could go to about twenty young people per cohort,” says Ms. Simoneau. 

The training is offered at the Anchor in New Carlisle. 

“We’re not limited.” With a permanent card, we can offer training on the North Shore because we have a very large territory,” says the director of Eastern Shores. 

This is a project that has been in the Chic-Chocs’ plans for about fifteen years for Sainte-Anne-des-Monts. 

“This is a project that everyone in Haute-Gaspésie has dreamed of. The partnership with the Centre de services scolaire des Navigateurs allowed the Centre de services scolaire des Chic-Chocs to develop expertise. The same goes for Eastern Shores, which had provided training with provisional authorization to develop expertise with this program,” says Ms. Synnott. 

Infrastructure such as a school construction site is already in place but machinery will have to be purchased from the Chic-Chocs. 

“We have a team of competent teachers. There will be purchases to be made in terms of machinery. Having the infrastructure will reduce the cost of implementation,” notes Ms. Synnott, who could not yet quantify the investments required. 

“We still have a lot of things to tie up. We just got the information that we have the program,” added the interim director. 

This first partnership between the two entities could lead to other collaborations. 

“We hope to work on other programs. We will sit down together. We realize that by joining forces, it is a win-win situation. With the expertise of both organizations, it helps us offer more programs and see how we can work together,” said Ms. Simoneau. 

“We are not there yet. This is a first. We could start with our current programs and see what could be done,” noted Ms. Synnott. 

“I am very happy for the young people in the region, whether Francophone, Anglophone or Indigenous, who are interested in a career in construction. The collaboration between the parties deserves to be highlighted,” said Gaspé Member of the National Assembly (MNA) Stéphane Sainte-Croix. 

Guy Bernatchez, the prefect of Haute-Gaspésie, is also pleased with the continuation of the course in Sainte-Anne-des-Monts. He notes that the course had been requested for several years. However, the challenge of housing for future students remains. 

The MRC supports the Centre de services scolaire des Chic-Chocs in finding solutions. “They must continue to put pressure on their (Education) ministry. We must renovate the old residences in Sainte-Anne-des-Monts that are abandoned. This could create housing for future students,” notes the prefect. 

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Town of Gaspé is close to dropping housing developer

Nelson Sergerie, LJI Journalist

GASPÉ – The Town of Gaspé is issuing a serious warning to the developer Logements CVP regarding the construction of 144 apartments near Carrefour Gaspé, as announced in September 2021.

“The municipal council tells me that the elastic is stretched to the limit. We were supposed to have a working meeting today (September 3) on this subject that unfortunately did not take place. The council is starting to get exasperated. The land has been acquired for three years,” explains Mayor Daniel Côté.
According to the elected official, there have been changes in the developer’s partners.

The mayor is hoping to have a quick follow-up. “We have no choice but to put pressure back on. We had applied pressure by giving notice of the exercise of our termination clause, which allowed us to take possession and full ownership of the land we had ceded,” Mr. Côté mentioned.

The elected official hopes for a positive, credible and solid response by mid-September. “Not a day goes by without citizens or developers contacting us. We are concerned and we hope to see progress on the file. There will be a meeting – I hope – within the next two weeks, that this will be resolved and that buildings will be raised,” the mayor adds.

“It is not the Town that is delaying the process. We have placed a lot of hope in this project. We still hope that this project will be carried out, but our patience has reached its limits,” the elected official clearly stated.
In February, the Town of Gaspé had already mentioned its intention to exercise its termination clause. A termination clause is a contractual mechanism that allows for sanctions for a party’s failure to meet its contractual obligations, by providing that the contract will be terminated at the fault of the party that has failed to respect its commitments.

In September 2021, Logements CVP purchased the municipal land for $300,000, when its assessment at the time was $566,000, to create Le Domaine de la Baie.

The investors also deposited a $266,000 security deposit, repayable in four installments each time a complex was built.

The project includes four buildings with 36 units each, to be built at a rate of one building per year until 2026. CVP had promised to start construction on December 31, 2023. In fact, the first foundation was to be poured by that date, which did not happen.

The project ran into technical issues due to the steeper-than-expected slope, which forced the developer to go back to the drawing board, erasing hopes of starting construction as early as 2022.
The pandemic also caused delays for materials, shifting the construction start date to the original plan of 2023.

Initially estimated at $25 million, the project could now reach over $40 million in its current form.
The announcement had been made with great fanfare, and the project was presented as the largest real estate development in Gaspé in 50 years.

The site offers an exceptional view of Gaspé Bay, is close to a shopping centre, and is less than five minutes from the heart of downtown and an equivalent distance from the LM Wind Power blade plant.

144 housing units: Developer responds to Gaspé’s ultimatum

The developer Logements CVP, which plans to build 144 housing units near Carrefour Gaspé, attributes the delay in the project to the Town of Gaspé.

On September 3, Gaspé issued a serious warning, demanding that the project announced in September 2021 be completed. The mayor said the town council was getting frustrated by the slow pace of development.

“We are really disappointed with what is happening with the Town of Gaspé. They are threatening us. I have been asking for a meeting with the council for over six months to explain that the constraints put in place by the town are too restrictive,” says one of the administrators, Allyson Cahill-Vibert.

The potential land reclamation included in the contract is the element that causes problems. “It’s really restrictive for us from the point of view of financial institutions. We’re taking enormous risks,” she says, bringing up the initial dispute with the Ministry of Natural Resources to complete the transaction. “There was a clause with the Environment (ministry). The town couldn’t sell it to us. We lost a year right there. We changed our plans several times to adapt them with the town. We have to connect to a pumping station that still doesn’t exist. The CPE (Centre de la petite enfance) was imposed on us. We tried to work with them. We wasted a lot of time and energy with the Ministry of Families and the CPE to give them a head start on the ground so as not to lose 80 daycare spaces. We’re working very hard. Our plans are made,” notes Ms. Cahill-Vibert.

The developer is looking for a contractor to move the file forward as well as a new partner. “But as long as the Town of Gaspé leaves clauses such as the repossession of the land in their favour or the performance bond penalties, we cannot move forward, we are blocked,” she continues.

Furthermore, the nearby project of 80 affordable housing units is pulling the rug out from under their feet. “We were supposed to collaborate with the Town of Gaspé and not work in opposite directions,” she says.

In the event that the Town carries out its threat, the developer is reserving its options. “If the Town takes back the land from us, we will analyze all the options on our side,” warns Ms. Cahill-Vibert, who indicates that she could build apartments elsewhere in the Gaspé Peninsula.

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Editorial: It’s broke, don’t fix it

Photo Ivan de Jacquelin

The Link
Local Journalism Initiative

On Feb. 5, the Quebec government confirmed that the Olympic Stadium’s roof repair would cost $870 million. 

Ever since the roof was completed in 1987, it has never really worked as intended. Portions of the roof notoriously collapsed in 1991 and 1999, yet the city believes a facelift will solve the impending dome doom. 

Another option for the Olympic Stadium is to entirely demolish it, a task proving harder than imagined. Politicians, engineers and board members are unsurprisingly against the demolition and have said that demolishing the stadium could run up to $2 billion, despite financial and engineering experts questioning the exact figure

In 2017, preserving the Olympic Stadium was justified through its heritage status. Since “my father, your father, paid for it, built it. […] It’s impossible, foolish to think about dismantling it,” said Michel Labrecque, head of the Olympic installation board at the time.

At the heart of the current roof renovation project is a blatant disregard for larger problems directly impacting citizens.

Clearly, Labrecque’s reasoning is that the roof is an ongoing issue which needs a solution since past generations paid dearly for it. Yet, the worry for other long-standing issues like basic human needs—cost of living adjustments, the healthcare and housing crises, unjust pay for public sector workers—are not as dire. 

But, sure, fixing a roof that will likely cave in with enough snow mounted on top of it for a couple car shows a year should be our utmost priority.

Speaking of car shows, the empty promise is to generate revenue for the city through additional events that could be held thanks to the renovation. Tourism minister Caroline Proulx said the renovated stadium could accommodate large shows for mega-celebrities like Taylor Swift or Beyoncé. With all these potential events, it is estimated the stadium itself could generate a whopping $1.5 billion over 10 years—or barely half of the construction fees. It’s to note that the ideal outcome for the roof would be that it lives to see 50 years. The future is short for the Olympic Stadium.

It’s funny to see the Legault government concerned with revenue when actions such as a decrease in funding for Montreal’s English universities—and the consequent diminishing enrollment numbers—will have the opposite effect. 

Less student traffic will have consequences on the workforce down the line but, immediately, neighbouring downtown shops and restaurants reliant on student traffic will be greatly affected. The impact of the decision to cut funding alone has had repercussions, but the benefits from extra events remain to be seen.

The other promise was for housing to be constructed in the residential neighbourhood surrounding Olympic Park. At the end of the day, it is solely a promise given by a man who has shelled out numerous empty ones.

The estimated revenues for the stadium, too, are a promise, and they will likely not be as high as predicted. Cost overruns have plagued the Olympic Stadium since its inception. When construction began in 1970, the budget had been set for $134 million, but the final costs were well over a billion dollars.

The Big O might need a new top, but it’s a bottomless money pit at best.

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