{"id":905310,"date":"2026-09-22T12:08:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T12:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/905310\/"},"modified":"2026-09-22T12:08:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T12:08:10","slug":"quebec-cities-need-better-public-consultations-not-fast-track-superpower-urban-planners-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/905310\/","title":{"rendered":"Quebec cities need better public consultations, not fast-track \u2018superpower,\u2019 urban planners say"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">From C\u00f4te-des-Neiges to Old Montreal, opposition is mounting across the city against a municipal \u201csuperpower\u201d that allows boroughs to strip citizens of the right to hold a referendum on zoning changes and fast-track approval of private developers\u2019 housing projects.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Residents and community groups in Ville-Marie and <a href=\"https:\/\/montrealgazette.com\/news\/borough-approves-1200-unit-housing-project-in-namur-hippodrome\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">C\u00f4te-des-Neiges\u2014Notre-Dame-de-Gr\u00e2ce<\/a> 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 rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/live\/D1e7J0Phb9I?t=2705s\">a Verdun borough council meeting this month <\/a>slammed the superpower as undemocratic and demanded the borough pledge to refrain from ever using it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The public blowback against the superpower, which was granted to all municipalities by the provincial government, doesn\u2019t surprise Quebec\u2019s professional order of urban planners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From C\u00f4te-des-Neiges to Old Montreal, opposition is mounting across the city against a municipal \u201csuperpower\u201d that allows boroughs&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":905311,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194292],"tags":[49,48,4520,2338],"class_list":["post-905310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-montreal","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-housing","tag-montreal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=905310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905310\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/905311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=905310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=905310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=905310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}