MONTREAL – The equivalent of less than half a city block of land appears to be holding up Transport Quebec’s $350-million project to rebuild the Dorval Interchange, and questions are being raised whether that’s because the Transportation Department neglected to put a hold on the property when it had the chance.
Transport Quebec is in a legal dispute with Fairfield Inn & Suites, which operates a hotel under the Marriott banner on Michel Jasmin Ave., over the land coveted by Transport Quebec.
The Transportation Department says it needs to acquire the 6,494 square metres of land around the hotel to create a right-of-way for an eventual rail line that will run Aéroports de Montréal’s planned shuttle service between downtown and Pierre Elliott Trudeau Airport.
The Quebec government passed a decree in June 2008 to acquire the land, while Transport Quebec placed a notice of expropriation on the property in July 2009, provincial land registry records show.
But that was three years after ADM presented Transport Quebec its pre-project plans for the rail shuttle showing where the railway would run. And in the meantime, the hotel was built – in 2008.
“I think a lot of people were surprised to see that hotel built in that small piece of land,” said Christiane Beaulieu, ADM’s vice-president of public affairs and communications, noting that “everyone knew the rail shuttle was planned.”
Get breaking National news
The city of Dorval gave the hotel a construction permit; however, Dorval city manager Robert Bourbeau said this week the hotel’s placement fit with Transport Quebec’s plan for the Dorval Interchange at the time.
Dorval even sold land to build the hotel to a numbered company in November 2006 for $105,234, land registry records show.
The hotel’s owners did not return calls. They are on vacation and unavailable to comment, a hotel employee said this week.
ADM’s pre-project plan hasn’t changed since it was presented to Transport Quebec five years ago, Beaulieu said. The plan shows the airport authority’s final decision to build the shuttle-end station under the U.S. departures terminal, and shows the line would run to the Dorval train station and then downtown, she added.
“Once we decided to have the train station under the U.S. departures (terminal) … we knew then how we would be connected to the Dorval station,” Beaulieu said, referring to the railway corridor.
The decision to build the rail shuttle necessarily meant that an additional passenger rail line would need to be built in the Dorval interchange, she added.
The ADM decided to increase its contribution to Transport Quebec’s Dorval interchange project to $20 million from $10 million after it chose the rail shuttle trajectory through the interchange, Beaulieu said.
Transport Quebec can’t comment on the land expropriation because of the legal proceedings, department spokesperson Réal Grégoire said.
A ruling by the Tribunal administratif du Québec related to the expropriation shows Transport Quebec previously offered $1 million for the land in dispute in 2010.
The Quebec government initially announced the Dorval interchange project would cost $150 million in 2005. The price tag went to $224 million when it was re-announced in 2009 to take into account inflation and the rail shuttle.
The project has since ballooned to $350 million and will be delivered four years later than planned, in 2017, The Gazette revealed this week.
Grégoire said earlier this week that the airport rail shuttle line has moved from where it was originally planned, which explains why Transport Quebec began proceedings to acquire the hotel land only recently.
“At the beginning, it didn’t pass through where the construction site is now,” he said.
However, Beaulieu said the ADM’s pre-project plan shows the trajectory was clear to Transport Quebec in 2006.
Meanwhile, work is continuing on the interchange, Grégoire has said. Transport Quebec has already invested $100 million.
Another $34 million is being invested this year to complete an overpass over Highway 520 (Côte de Liesse Rd.), to build roadways that will provide access to ramps that will connect Highway 520 to the airport and to do water and sewer work in the southern portion of the interchange.
Work planned for this year also includes construction of a new overpass at Michel Jasmin Ave.
Comments