The Museum of Fine Arts’ (MBAM) newest pavilion, which is to open next September, is topped with a glass-walled lookout over Mount Royal. But a proposed condo development, which is nearly double the building height limit for this area, would obscure a good chunk of the view.
This is not a debate about density, aesthetics or heritage preservation; it is a breach of contract.
In designing the new pavilion, the museum’s architects worked within city’s zoning regulations, which limited the volume of the new structure. The “Claire and Marc Bourgie Pavilion” will give a second life to the Eskrine and American church, built in 1894 and closed in 2004, and will include a new 5-storey annex behind the church.
But if the museum took it for granted that the same rules would apply to others, they were sorely mistaken. The urban plan should limit any structure on the Redpath site to three stories or 16m, yet Ville Marie gave the go-ahead to demolish the historic Redpath Mansion and build a 7-story, 25-m structure in its place.
«Le Musée s’est astreint à concevoir son projet d’annexe en fonction du règlement de zonage. La Ville nous a obligés à en limiter le volume,” the MBAM’s administrative director Paul Lavallée told La Presse. “Et puis arrive ce projet d’un promoteur privé qui, lui, obtient une dérogation. C’est majeur.»
C’est Majeur
I don’t believe that Lavallée is overstating the importance of this matter: It is just the latest example of the negative repercussions of an ad-hoc application of the urban plan.
The urban plan is a social contract among Montrealers, meant to be applied by those elected to govern, that shapes our shared living space. In Montreal, this contract has been bent and broken so often that developers seem to regard it as a hurdle rather than a law, and citizens feel powerless to defend their vision of the city. From building heights to festival permits, the application of urban regulations is fickle and favouritist and those players like the MBAM who follow the rules tend to lose out.
I can see why a city that earns it’s bread in property taxes is tempted to pile three extra floors of condos into a new project. But what is lost with the uncertainty that plagues Montreal’s urban landscape? The MBAM would lose value with the new condo construction, and surely they’re not alone. Who wants to invest in such uncertain conditions? Only the people who pull the strings.
I’m not saying that the city should be bound by an unchanging vision concocted in 2005. The urban plan is meant to be updated regularly – actually it was actually supposed to be done in 2010. But for a policy that should have a hand in shaping every single square metre of Montreal, even the City doesn’t seem to take it very seriously.
Last July, when Richard Bergeron was in charge of urbanism on the Executive Committee, he announced the creation of a Planning Bureau that would knit together priorities in zoning, transportation, culture, heritage, the projection of Mount Royal, accessible housing, and regional planning by 2013. Now that he’s off the executive committee, it’s not clear to me where the dossier stands.
Consultation coming
Sammy Forcillo, one of the city councillors who voted in favour of the project last November, told La Presse that he was surprised to learn that a 7-story building located on the slopes of the mountain would affect the view of the mountain. In November, Forcillo told Le Devor that they had okay-ed the development so that they could not be criticized of “immobilisme,” but that he encouraged residents to express their concerns in a public consultation that is to open in March.
Once again citizens are left with the uphill battle of critiquing a development that the city has already voted in favour of, and defending the values that the urban plan exists to preserve in the first place.
8 comments
Every Montrealer who expects that his city will be governed by honest, intelligent elected people should be upset by the doubled rezoning and other derogations awarded to the owners of the Redpath House that demolish fifty years of efforts to preserve the property values of the older buildings that exist on the southern slopes of Mount Royal. The preservation of their value depends on disallowing higher rise buildings in the Area.
Unfortunately the Redpath House is only one of several examples in the City where zoning has been set aside by using the more permissive Master Plan that had its origins in the need to better conserve and protect what existed of value in the City.
The zoning laws for the Old Square Mile limit new building heights to half of what the Master plan allows. This is a contradiction (pointed out at the time) which never should have been allowed when the Master Plan was passed or amended. This contradiction between Master Plan and Zoning gives city councilors, who know exactly what they are doing, the means by which they could award naked favours to speculators under a vocabulary of architectural and planning ‘expertspeak’. Special additions to density and height of buildings above the zoning rules disguise gifts of increased values to real estate which benefit every property speculator in the city who begs that a new building on his or her property is ‘somehow special’.
In the case of the Redpath House, its property value has been more than doubled at a stroke and every property in the Square Mile with a three story house is that much closer to demolition for a six or seven story building. Why Not?
To allow this system to function anywhere is an open invitation to favouritism and worse by elected officials and burocrats.
Any new zonings deemed harmful to a neighbourhood can theoretically be set aside by organized citizens nearby. In fact, however, the Law on Referendums heavily favour the organized speculator-developer and disadvantage local citizens.
What is happening at the Redpath House is a scandal. I am glad that the Museum people are standing up for what amounts to no less than better government of the City.
Good for them.
Chaque montréalais qui s’attend à ce que sa ville sera régi par des élus honnêtes, intelligents, devrait être perturbés par le zonage doublé et autres dérogations accordées aux propriétaires de la maison Redpath. On démolit les cinquante années d’efforts déployés pour préserver les valeurs de propriété des bâtiments plus âgés qui existent sur le versant sud du Mont Royal. La préservation de leur valeur foncière dépend de rejeter de tout nouvel immeuble plus élevées que trois étages dans Le Square Mile.
Malheureusement, la maison Redpath n’est pas le seul de plusieurs exemples dans la ville où zonage a été mis de côté en utilisant le Plan directeur plus permissif qui tire ses origines de la nécessité et le désir de mieux conserver et protéger ce qui existait de valeur dans la ville.
Les règles de zonage de vieux Square Mile limitent les hauteurs des nouveaux bâtiments à la moitié de ce que permet le plan directeur. Il s’agit d’une contradiction (remarqué à l’époque) qui ne jamais aurait dû être accueillie lorsque le Plan Directeur a été adopté ou modifié. Cette contradiction donne aux Conseillers de Ville, qui savent exactement ce qu’ils font, le moyen par lequel ils pouvaient accorder des faveurs nues aux spéculateurs en vertu d’un vocabulaire «expertspeak» d’architecture et d’aménagement. Spéciales ajouts à la densité et la hauteur des bâtiments au-dessus des règles de zonage déguisent des dons de valeurs immobilières accrues qui profitent chaque spéculateur de propriété de la ville qui supplie qu’un nouveau bâtiment sur sa propriété est «de quelque façon que ce soit – Spécial».
Dans le cas de la maison Redpath, sa valeur de propriété a été plus que doublé d’un trait de plume. Pire, chaque propriété dans le Square Mile avec une maison de trois étages est beaucoup plus proche de démolition pour un bâtiment de six ou sept étages. Dites-moi – Pourquoi pas?
Pour permettre ce système contradictoire de fonctionner ‘Anywhere’ est une invitation au favoritisme et le pire par les élus et les burocrats.
Tous nouveaux zonages jugés nuisibles à un quartier peuvent théoriquement être annulées par des citoyens organisés à proximité. En fait, cependant, la Loi sur les Référendums favorise fortement le spéculateur-développeur organisé et désavantage des citoyens locaux. (Ce que se devrait être corrigé)
Ce qui se passe à la maison Redpath, c’est un scandale. Je suis heureux que les gens du Musée soient debout pour ce qui équivaut à pas moins de mieux gouverner la ville.
Bon pour eux.
Same old joke – a councilor voting to support a project that he has no idea about, same old bungling gang of stumbler’s devoted to the developers that make up Tremblay’s Union party. People who know nothing about cities directly impacting the most significant parts of Montreal because their boss tells them it’s a good idea.
It would be nice to illustrate articles with photographs that shows the point instead of forcing one to squint on a postage-stamp sized picture.
I’m not particularly excited about this project but it would be nice if you would push for its height to be reduced rather than the project being completely cancelled. I know most of you like empty underdeveloped neighborhoods but I think density has been proven to look better and feel better in many ways.
Adolfo, but then the people across the street won’t have a view of the back of the alley!
It would be nice if someone (the city?) made an independent measurement. The measurement from the developers looks a lot different:
http://img200.imageshack.us/img200/466/suburban.jpg
What is funny is that the apparent size of an object will not only depend on the actual size and position of the object, but also on the size of the camera angle (I don’t know if I’m using the right words, but I’m sure any photographer knows what I mean).
The mansion has been “saved” now. It will remain ruins for the next 30 years until it just falls down by itself or people who complain about every possible new development realize that they are contributing to making the city a sad a desolate place to live :(