The Montreal Metropolitan Community (CMM) wants the provincial government to reverse its decision to build a ground level paved parking lot on the site of the future Vaudreuil-Soulanges hospital.
Comprising 82 Montreal-area municipalities and headed by Montreal mayor Valérie Plante, the CMM stresses that such a parking lot would contribute to creating a heat island effect in the area.
Officials also point out that it wouldn’t be in keeping with the land use development plan and the province’s own guidelines for land use. The site for the hospital is 25 hectares and a ground-level parking lot alone would take up 5.7 hectares.
Vaudreuil-Dorin mayor Guy Pilon says a parking lot that size makes no sense.
“We accepted plans for the hospital a few years ago, and a big part of the parking was supposed to be underground or multi-level parking,” he told Global News.
“They decided a few weeks ago to save money.”
In a statement to Global News, health ministry spokesperson Noémie Vanheuverzwijn indicated, without giving figures, that rising construction costs was a factor, but that the ministry shares the concerns of the CMM regarding the reduction of environmental impacts.
“Major efforts are being made to significantly reduce heat islands, in particular by installing a canopy that will cover 40% of the surface of the parking lot, which will considerably reduce the temperature of the site and the heat island effect,” she wrote.
Still, Pilon wants the government to go back to the original plan saying that a canopy would be enough.