MONTREAL – The Quartier de la santé, the area surrounding the Université de Montréal superhospital (CHUM) construction site on St. Denis St., is an unplanned collection of projects, and the administration of Mayor Gérald Tremblay has ignoring the “disorder” for the past seven years, Projet Montréal leader Richard Bergeron charged on Wednesday.
“What we see around us, the disorder … the Health Ministry building a hospital on its site, private promoters building piecemeal, whatever they want, on their sites,” Bergeron told reporters gathered outside the Champs de Mars métro station.
“There’s no thought been given to public spaces, there’s no thought been given … to the manner in which 30,000 people will in comfort and security, get to the CHUM on the other side of this esplanade.”
Bergeron said that when the province finally decided in May of 2005 to build the CHUM on St. Denis St., city council unanimously agreed to create a local development plan for the area around the construction.
Known commonly as a PPU, its French acronym, that part of the plan dealing with the hospital itself was the topic of public hearings, but any discussion of how the neighbourhood would be developed or protected never took place.
Bergeron acknowledged that a tunnel had been built connecting the métro with the hospital’s research centre and a second underground thoroughfare would be built between the subway and the hospital itself.
“That’s good … but that just means commuters will be able to move underground, the surface will remain as it is,” he said. “Walk along Lagauchetière St … walk along Sanguinet … walk along Viger … walk along St. Antoine St., and understand that nothing is going to change.
“How can we accept that $3 billion be invested in the … CHUM while we’re saving (money) on something as elementary as thinking about what will happen to the neighbourhood?”
Projet Montréal councillor François Croteau told reporters that local development plans has readily been prepared for several projects downtown, including the Quartier des spectacles.
“Are we being told that the Quartier des spectacles is very important,” he said. “But the Quartier de la santé isn’t important enough to have an integrated development plan?”
But a spokesperson for the mayor’s office said Bergeron’s information on the neighbourhood was just plain wrong.
“The Quartier de la santé is a centre of growth and the city is playing a leadership role in developing the area and involving the population with public consultations,” Martine Painchaud said. “And the area where Bergeron was speaking to reporters is one where we’re waiting for the results of a (Transport Quebec) study on covering the Ville Marie Expressway.
“We can’t plan so long as that study isn’t completed and it should be made public in a couple of weeks.”
Bergeron said his party intended to table a motion during this month’s meeting of city council calling upon the city council to update its 2005 plan and submit to public consultations.
Painchaud said, “Mr. Bergeron would be better employed looking after his own borough (of Plateau Mont Royal). The citizens there are unhappy because they can’t even get basic services like snow removal.”
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