MONTREAL, Que. – Montrealers who have fought for decades to keep the Meadowbrook Golf Course a green space rejoiced cautiously Tuesday after the city’s announcement it has turned down a developer’s plan to put 1,500 housing units on the property.
The developer, meanwhile, said the news came as a surprise, and it still intends to move forward.
If the city truly wants to protect the 57-acre site that straddles the border of Côte St. Luc and Lachine, members of Les Amis de Meadowbrook said, it must change the zoning on Lachine’s territory from residential to recreational. Cote St. Luc changed the zoning of the portion of the course sitting in its municipality in 2000.
"It’s an important first step, but it does not indicate that down the road the city will refuse development," said Patrick Asch of Les Amis. "It just postpones development for an amount of time."
Lachine mayor Claude Dauphin said residential development of Meadowbrook was never a priority for him. He will not be changing the zoning, however, "because I don’t want to get sued." (Former owners of the property sued Cote St. Luc for $20 million after the municipality changed its zoning). He did say, however, that he felt Ville St. Pierre, which is in desperate need of infrastructure work, should receive some sort of political or financial consideration since it will not be benefiting from the tax revenue the development was supposed to bring to the town.
At a city council meeting Monday night, Montreal executive committee vice-chairperson Alan DeSousa announced the city had said no to development firm Group Pacific, which bought the property in 2006 for $3 million. The city is not interested in turning the land into a public park, as environmental groups have been asking, he said, because of the cost.
The city decided to withdraw when it became apparent taxpayers wouldn’t be "getting bang for their buck," DeSousa said.
"Our services analyzed it in depth, taking into account what impact it would have on the community, the costs of infrastructure -water and sewage as well as transportation," he said. "We came to the conclusion that local priorities in Lachine were to invest (instead) in the revitalization of Lachine east."
De Sousa acknowledged that bang for the city’s buck was measured by how much potential tax revenue from the Meadowbrook project would exceed the infrastructure costs.
"Our objective was to give the developer a quick response on where we stood on this … The developer bought the land in full knowledge that was a golf course, Well, I wish him luck and I hope he operates it as a golf course for a long time to come. And if he does, the foxes, the squirrels, the birds, the trees, the grasses will continue to be there for the benefit of the community."
De Sousa sidestepped questions about how much the city would have had to pay in infrastructure costs, but noted the area, accessible only by Cote St. Luc Rd., would have required the construction of roads as well as water and sewage systems.
"It presented not only challenges, but big numbers."
The city has the legal right to change the zoning to recreational, even if it means the developer could lose out, Asch said.
"When they bought the land, they kind of bought a lottery ticket," he said, noting that in 2006, there had been several recommendations from city bodies and even the mayor of Montreal to turn it into a park. Avrom Shtern of Les Amis said the land is evaluated by the city at $10 million, but Group Pacific picked it up cheap because of the green issue.
Asch suggested the firm could make a donation of the land, and recoup its money in the form of tax writeoffs, or could organize a land swap with the government of Quebec for property near the Turcot Yards slated for redevelopment.
Group Pacific, however, said it has been studying for years how to develop Meadowbrook, hiring more than 40 engineers and consultants to try and create Canada’s first One Planet Community development, which calls for strict environmental norms.
"I’m quite surprised by the city’s comment, actually …" Suzanne Deschamps said in a telephone interview from Paris. "I have not received such a response."
Group Pacific is eager to show its green plans, which she said are being talked about internationally.
"It’s world class and I think it merits that people see what it is and try to understand it."
She could not say if Group Pacific would be willing to cover part of the city’s infrastructure costs without seeing the numbers, she said.
Michael Johnson, who leases the land and has run the golf course for two decades with the threat of closing looming, said he didn’t think DeSousa’s announcement meant much for the long-term health of the course, given that activists are fighting to turn it into a natural green space open to all, and that the developer still has to weigh in.
But interim manager Jean Yves Prevost said golfers coming in yesterday morning were ecstatic. The club, which has soldiered on with little financing over the years, had only 140 season members last year because of uncertainty over the club’s future. Prevost expects that to improve, now.
"We’re all excited," said Prevost, who has worked there for 13 years, along with about 30 other employees. "It means I’m going to have a job."
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