BRENDA O’FARRELL
The 1510 West

Will the residents of Pointe Claire have the opportunity to participate in a public consultation meeting on the future of the wooded area commonly known as Fairview Forest?

It is a question without an answer.

At least that is how it appears in the wake of the June council meeting in Pointe Claire – more than a year since the city launched its public consultation process following the adoption of a development freeze in key areas in the municipality to allow the public to weigh in on how development should take shape.

At the meeting on June 4, Geneviève Lussier, the spokesperson for the Save Fairview Forest group, put the question about the forest consultation directly to elected officials. The response she received was far from clear.

Mayor Tim Thomas turned to the city’s director-general for an update.

“We have to have a workshop … with the council before … for (council) to decide what the next steps for that,” said Pointe Claire director-general Karina Verdon.

Taking that information, Thomas then turned to Lussier and said: “Apparently, it’s still in the works.”

But then the mayor, who has repeatedly stated publicly he is in favour of seeing the woodland preserved from development, cast the prospect of a consultation session on the subject under a shadow of doubt: “My concern is whether it happens,” he said.

In an interview earlier this week, Lussier summed up her frustration with the lack of clarity on whether the residents of Pointe Claire will get a chance to weigh in on what she described as “the biggest issue in Pointe Claire right now.”

“I’m a little bit perplexed that this has not moved forward,” she said in an interview with The 1510 West.

“We’re flummoxed,” Lussier said, referring to her group which has been holding weekly demonstrations at the forest for the past 186 weeks, just more than three years, urging the woodland be preserved as a natural space.

She could only speculated that the acrimonious climate on council might be behind the lack of action on this question.

“There has got to be reasons,” she said. “I would like to know what those reasons are.”

In an interview earlier this week, Thomas said: “It seems to be a very cumbersome, slow-moving, almost stalled process.”

“I, too, would like to see where it’s going,” said councillor Bruno Tremblay in an interview.

Tremblay is clear he would like to see all of the remaining 43 acres of Fairview Forest preserved from development.

“I can only voice what I think should happen,” Tremblay added.

Councillor Eric Stork said the potential for a public consultation on the forest “is in the hands of urban planning  and the mayor. I have yet to see any proposal.”

“The administration is aware of the public interest in the topic,” said councillor Brent Cowan.

Given that the fate of the forest is one of the mayor’s priorities, Cowan added: “The mayor should have a significant role to play. It’s not my priority.”

So far, the city has hosted five public consultation meetings with the help of a consulting firm. Adding a session would require issuing another tender to engage a consultant to lead the process, Thomas said. There is no record of a tender being issued by the city, according to the Système Élecronique d’appel d’offres du gouvernement du Québec.

“It needs to happen since it was promised to us,” said Lussier, referring to a consultation on the forest. “It’s a matter of responsibility and ethics on the part of the council and administration.”

A session held by the consultants last October that touched on environmental issue, which included references to what homeowners could do on their lots and allowing chicken ownership, did not look at topics of development on a broader scale within the city, Lussier said.

Referring to preserving natural spaces and other issues touching on climate change, she said, “This is the issue of our times and there is very little action. Why is there such silence?”

Fairview Forest, she said, “is perfectly placed to be the Central Park of the West Island.”

This is not the first time criticism of the consultation process in Pointe Claire has surfaced. Earlier this spring, a resident asked council why key specific subjects, including the forest; the parking lot the Fairview Pointe Claire shopping centre, where Cadillac Fairview has proposed building a 20-storey seniors complex and two 25-storey apartment buildings; areas along St. Jean Boulevard; and the Pointe Claire and Valois villages have not been raised in the consultations to gauge residents’ views on these topics.

The process, said resident David Johnston in April, has not given “citizens the opportunity to talk about what everyone wants to talk about.” Nor has it touched on issues like the height of high-rises, the redevelopment of commercial zones or what would be the cost of possibly acquiring Fairview Forest, he said.

Last fall, a number of residents were outraged when they were informed at the consultation that dealt with environment issues when they were informed there would be no discussion of the forest. The topic was off limits due to what was referred to by the consultatnt as “judicial considerations,” one resident claimed to have been told at the meeting.

In the meantime, councillor Tara Stainforth in April has opted to revert to Facebook where she has posted a survey asking residents about how much money they would be willing to pay extra in taxes to see the forest purchased by the city. The initiative has sparked criticism as to methodology in gauging opinion.