Top of mind for those who showed up at Pointe Claire city hall to vote Sunday was how the city will look and feel in the future.
“I think development is a concern, I think traffic is a concern,” District 1 resident Kevin O’Connor told Global News on his way to cast his ballot.
They are issues that have created, what some have described as, deep divisions within the community because of competing visions for the city.
According to former District 1 city councillor Erin Tedford, debate became hostile, even threatening.
Earlier this year when she quit politics, after a little more than a year into her mandate, she posted on social media that her “views were rarely welcomed and efforts to silence them have been aggressive.”
At the time she also spoke of being harassed at her home.
Sunday’s by-election was to replace Tedford.
At issue in Pointe Claire is what to do about development.
“We’re in the midst of the revision of the urban plan and this creates a lot of discussion,” explained City of Pointe Claire spokesperson Lucie Lamoureux.
Following the last municipal election, the city placed a freeze on real estate development, including the Cadillac Fairview project that was planned for the area near the Fairview shopping centre.
The debate, which began even before the last municipal election is about how much densification is too much.
“We don’t want high rises, we don’t want 10-storey buildings, we want to maintain the green spaces that we have in Pointe Claire,” Susan Walker, another resident stressed.
Voters say though they deplore the animosity, it points to something more positive.
“There’s always been a bit of a rift in Pointe Claire,” Walker laughed. “I think it’s because we’re all passionate about what’s going on in this city.”
That spirit, O’Connor believes, is evidenced by the number of candidates in the by-election — six for a district with just over 2,000 eligible voters.
“There are so many interesting things happening in Pointe Claire right now, with the development and the environment and what’s going on in our community, that people want to be involved, and I think that’s great,” he stated.
Residents say they don’t expect to see eye-to-eye on everything. They just want things to be civil.