From Côte-des-Neiges to Old Montreal, opposition is mounting across the city against a municipal “superpower” that allows boroughs to strip citizens of the right to hold a referendum on zoning changes and fast-track approval of private developers’ housing projects.
Residents and community groups in Ville-Marie and Côte-des-Neiges—Notre-Dame-de-Grâce criticized the two boroughs this month as using the superpower as a sledgehammer to fast-track and approve large-scale developments containing mainly market-priced units. Meanwhile, a citizen at a Verdun borough council meeting this month slammed the superpower as undemocratic and demanded the borough pledge to refrain from ever using it.
The public blowback against the superpower, which was granted to all municipalities by the provincial government, doesn’t surprise Quebec’s professional order of urban planners.