Residents of Montreal’s Milton-Parc, known for their opposition to large-scale development, are fighting to save green space in their neighbourhood. A former alleyway turned into an urban oasis, Parc Oxygène, is being threatened by the city after it rezoned and agreed to let the property owner develop a three-story structure on the park. Featured are long-time Milton-Parc residents Norman Nawrocki, Gabrielle Weech and Wayne Wood.
Parc Oxygène
By Adam Bemma
Read more articles by Adam Bemma
10 comments
While I applaud the efforts of the community to retain their ‘green oasis’, the problem is that it is on private land, so ostensibly the landowner can do whatever they want with it within municipal guidelines. When the park was created, the community must have realized that this was an eventuality.
The only way for the community to preserve this is to purchase it from the landowner at what will likely be a premium price. The reason why the city won’t buy it is that it is too much money for those that will benefit. Politicians must balance the needs of the greater community against the wishes of a special interest group. This is likely a case where too few will benefit from the outlay of capital.
I can’t wait until our planet’s consciousness develops to the point where land “ownership” is considered barbaric and contrary not only to human rights but the rights of the planet’s ecosystem itself.
The only reason this park is threatened is because someone who claims to be the land’s owner wants to profit monetarily. If we considered the situation rationally and objectively, it is ecologically and socially more beneficial to the entire city to keep this green space than for one single owner to profit from it monetarily. Condos will only bring more air, noise, water, and ground pollution to the area.
… et contribuer à la vie de quartier. Si on souhaite limiter l’étalement urbain en banlieue, il faut pouvoir construire en ville.
Je ne connais pas le quartier, mais d’autres espaces verts sont peut-être envisageables?
I agree with Niomi – the idea of property has its flaws.
But on the contrary:
I don’t know how many of you have been to Parc Oxygene. I have checked it out, and…it’s rather small, barren and unpleasant (please disagree if you feel I’m wrong). And besides, parc mont royal is literally right beside it, within throwing distance in fact.
Further disagreeing with Niomi, I think that adding density in a city is always a good thing. We’re all here because we are urban enthusiasts. Development in downtown montreal is a step against a housing development in Laval, on valuable agricultural land where people are dependent on private transport and generally energy-sink lifestyles.
It is easy to through blame around, but there is not always a simple answer when you look at the facts in as objective a way as is possible:
The owner bought the land for next to nothing from a sheriff’s sale (following seizure for non payment of property taxes). The public list of municipal evaluations*, i.e. what determines property taxes, lists the land’s value at under $30 thousand. Meanwhile the property owner put it up for sale on MLS for over $300 thousand !
The city can’t just go around taking over private property, they would have to buy it for the price the owner is selling it at (our legal system protects ‘private property and the right to make a profit on investment’ over and above anything else including a duely elected municipal government’s will to create green space). How many tax payers do you know in Montreal who would be willing to have $350 thou of their money used to pay-off a speculator 10x what his property is worth? With all due respect to the the great initiative that the park represents, no one who just had their municipal taxes practically doubled to cover the city’s functional deficit is going to be cool with that.
If pressure is maintained on the owner, and the message is communicated clearly to any potential developper, that they will have a battle on their hands if they try to build on it, the park will remain and grow as it has done for over a decade now thanks to the hard work of a determined bunch of neighbours and those of us who support them. The owner might one day tire of his game and sell it at a reasonable price so that it can be made into a park permanently by the cooperative. But then again, if property values keep going up the way they have been in the area (in large part because McGill students are willing to pay a fortune for crappy little apartments), a developper will come along who is willing to pay the price to build on that tiny sliver of land.
Don’t get me worng, I am not defending our mayor: it doesn’t help that Tremblay’s ‘mot d’ordre’ is still all about selling-off city land at bargain basement prices to his friends the developpers, as opposed to acquiring more land. Hard not to notice though that the people who keep voting Tremblay in don’t live in densely populated urbain districts…
*to consult the values of properties in Montreal go to:
http://ville.montreal.qc.ca/portal/page?_pageid=3077,3528875&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL
look up rue: Hutchison
Click on the one in Plateau Montreal, scroll down to the bottom of the address list to LOT, then you will find the piece of land owned by Maurice Fattal, and you can note the municipal evaluation (rôle foncière) of Parc Oxygène.
Lise: Ah, the Fattal family. They own a bunch of property in the downtown core. They are known for being commercial slum lords, I believe. Please correct me if I have been misinformed.
I’m not defending the park itself, which was knowingly built on private property. They knew their park would one day be uprooted. I’m no lawyer but I believe, according to current private property laws, the founders of the park have no legal recourse.
I heard there was a right-of-way law in England.. though I’m not very sure what it entails. Does anyone have any information regarding right-of-way laws? Are there any in Canada?
Daniel: Adding density in the urban core is indeed better than sprawl. It would be nice if Montreal incorporated a “green space” ordinance for new developments, however, like the Green Factor program in Seattle, or the equivalent program in Berlin which forces developers to create green space on developed land.
Ok. In the video they say they made a “dangerous alley” into a safe one by planting flowers. I’m sorry but that’s just not how safety works in a city. The only way to make dangerous unused space in a city into safe space is to build on it. Empty parks in alleyways nobody pays attention to are no better than empty parking lots.
Why can’t the city expropriate this land? There are countless plots of land and neighbourhoods on the island of Montreal that have been bought out and/or expropriated in the interest of “development” (the old St Jacques neighbourhood, the former neighbourhood where the CBC building now stands, the neighbourhood that was razed for La Cité, the Polish community that was kicked to out make room for Prince Arthur, etc).
Why does it suddenly seem so impossible when the conditions are reversed, ie, when the little guy stands to benefit?
People forget, when that alley was converted into a park about 1997, the point was traffic safety. The alley had been used as a shortcut for cars, I think specifically taxis, and that was some issue at the time. It was explained in “Hour” at the time. So they planted bushes and rolled down grass to block that traffic.
They might have just put up a barrier, but that likely would have been taken down, while it requires work (and maybe a mental barrier) to rip out the garden. A barrier is taking over the land, planting is just letting nature do its thing.
I had completely forgotten about it until about last year when I walked up Hutchison, it hasn’t gotten any press in a long time, people don’t even remember its origins.
Building on the spot will serve the same purpose as planting a garden, it won’t be an alley for cars to use.
What is lost is the symbol, yet as someone pointed out, it’s not like there is no grass or plants nearby. For those who remember Tooker Gomberg, it might be considered a memorial to him, since he was a key player in the origins of the project, though nobody bothered to rename the place after he killed himself about five years ago.
The goal was to block the traffic, not to have more greenery. One always has to keep the goal in sight, or else the fights are about side issues.
What is significant is that it’s worth planting when land goes empty for a while. I was there for the opening party, and I didn’t expect it to last so long. But every time there is a hideous hole in the ground after demolition but before construction, it makes sense to plant, as a temporary space and to cover the ugliness. Sometimes those temporary holes turn into long term emptiness. And better to have an unattended jungle in an empty lot than just the empty lot. This happened downtown about 1998, there was one lot that was either planted or nature just took over, and someone was campaigning to name it “Nick’s Garden” after Nick auf der Maur. Then when construction did begin, the jungle went away, having served its purpose. Concordia did it on one vacant lot at Guy on a more formal basis.
Michael
One one hand, I am with these people and I strongly believe that for the point that our city (and all big urban areas in the world actually) has reached, we have to preserve every green space, big or small, left green. Just look at older cities like Paris or London, where the green wasn’t preserved. Today they are suffocating under the rock and concrete. Obviously North America is better off because of all the space we have, but the green is disappearing bits by bits too, and once a building is up, it never goes back to being a green spot.
On the other hand I believe that private property has to be protected (we’re in North America after all ;).
So the city and even the residents kind of messed up here. They should have gotten together and bought the place 10 years ago when it was dirt (literally) cheap. Today, the city is messing up because they are not buying the owner out with some money and a few municipal re-zoning threats.
The other option the city has is to actually create a new green spot, of the same or bigger size than Parc Oxygene. Obviously the residents of the Milton area will indeed loose a green spot and access to the sky, but at least it wouldn’t all have been for nothing.
There is another cause for another park that is threatened in Montreal. This time, it is actually a municipal park so it really has no reason to be endangered, except for human un-considerateness and greed. It’s called Parc de la Congrégation in Point St-Charles. The topic has been quiet for over a year so I hope that the park isn’t endangered anymore. Here is some info.