Photo du jour: Outremont industriel

2 comments

1. This light industrial area might be deemed slummy NOW by some.

   Just wait until the sleazo developers in collusion with the clowns at zoning in City Hall permit high-density slumplexes in 3 stories in a contiguous wall intersection to intersection.

   The area will then degrade and be populated by folk who cannot ever find work and then simmer in rage as they perceive themselves repressed, with some validity.

   ( Think of that saddening short film of the business man getting in a taxi on Dorchester by the Sun Life Building and getting a quick tour of Montreal North, then back to affluence by the SLB. )

   T’was much nicer in MN when the Tramways was Single-track from Limites to Rue Pigeon opposite St Vincent de Paul.

   Light industry provides jobs and then slumbers quietly at night and on weekends.

   When not in use, their energy, water and sewer demands are minimal, and really, how many toilets, sinks, washing machines and showers will there be in a factory??

   How many parked cars of all vintages and decrepitude, even junquers that will never have wheels nor turn a wheel again, covered in graffiti.

   Other than residential taxes slumification brings nothing but grief to all, including the residents.

   Five or six hundred autos on a site that once held a factory or golf course contribute more pollution than what was there before.

   The drain on services are appalling, also.

   Freight Yards ARE ugly, but what replaced them is worse!

   Turcot, tho’ smoky, was far more fascinating when full of steam engines than what it is NOW!

   Ditto the golf courses being converted to housing.

   Its all about money, not pleasant living.

   Thank You.

2. I’m not sure I fully agree, Devin. I agree that light industry is a good thing to have near where the workers live, and rounds out a community – I remember the Cadbury plant at the corner of Masson and de Lorimier, at the far northeastern corner of what is now called the Plateau.

   But I disagree that semi-intense urban housing development fatally becomes slums. It can, but it can also be the kind of condos we see on some streets in the Plateau. There are many factors, and indeed quality densification requires greenery and small parks, and nearby amenities. That area is a bit of an enclave; it is not connected to the rest of Outremont, even the other old light industrial parts north of Van Horne, to Petite Patrie or Parc-Ex. That strikes me as the main problem there.

   I don’t have much use for golf courses (the grass is far too short and requires a lot of chemicals) but they should be converted into parks and gardens.