Plan St-Laurent - Pour un développement durable

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  • In brief – 2008

Fine example of integrated management
in east end Montreal

According to the Jacques-Cartier ZIP Committee, the eastern part of Montreal Island will be undergoing a completely new type of development within a f

ew years. It will be a truly sustainable form of development articulated around the harmonious co-existence of residential neighbourhoods and industrial facilities, in which the living environment and the natural environment – including the St. Lawrence and the Des Prairies rivers – will no longer be at the mercy of solely economic imperatives.

These ambitions are anything but pipe dream, based as they are on the issue table called “Aménagement et environnement de la Pointe-de-l’Île,” which the Committee launched in 2006, and whose implementation will continue over a vast area in 2008, culminating in a forum and the launch of the issue table in early 2009.

Representatives from every area of activity in the region will be involved in the project: industry, health, the environment, governments, community groups, etc. “It is a fine example of integrated management on a scale suited to a small area,” said the director general of the ZIP Committee, Chantal Rouleau. Indeed, it can be considered a prototype for the regional issue tables that are to be established under the St. Lawrence integrated management project, which is in the process of implementing the St. Lawrence Plan for Sustainable Development for all of Quebec.

“Our project arose out of the community’s determination to put an end to a development model that seriously shackles the area’s future,” said Ms. Rouleau. East-end Montreal (Mercier, Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, Montréal-Est, Rivière-des-Prairies, Pointe-aux-Trembles, Anjou) has experienced a very high level of industrial activity since the 1920s, with undesirable social and environmental consequences: air, water, soil and sediment pollution, pockets of poverty, population health at a lower level than elsewhere in Quebec, loss of recreational access to the river, etc.

However, Ms. Rouleau feels that the area also has major assets and considerable potential for more harmonious development. As was shown by a consultation conducted by the health partners in the ZIP Committee area, the people who live there are proud of being in this part of Montreal. “People want to stay in the East End, but they also want to improve their living conditions from a sustainable development standpoint.”

That is what led to the vision adopted by the focus group established in 2006 to prepare the issue table: “Making the east end of Montreal Island a high-quality living environment in which the communities take pride in contributing to their own sustainable development.”

The focus group, which was made up of 15 people representing various areas of activity, also identified three main issues to be addressed: 1) emergency services and development harmonization, 2) population health, 3) reclaiming the banks and the ability to use the water. The actions targeted for each of these issues (about 40 in all) will necessarily cut across at least two aspects of sustainable development, namely:

• economic and social (e.g. assessing the cumulative impacts of pollutants and their repercussions on the environment and health, or enforcing the ban on heavy trucking in residential areas);
• social and environmental (e.g. provide proper planning for green spaces and blue spaces);
• economic and environmental (e.g. identify the repercussions of contaminated soils on water quality and on the water table);
• economic, social and environmental (e.g. harmonizing the relationship between and the development of residential neighbourhoods and industrial facilities, or improving air and water quality).

In the four workshops to be held a few months apart in 2008, approximately 30 stakeholders from all walks of life will study and document each of the targeted actions, with a view to preparing a scorecard to track their coordinated progress towards implementation.

The forum to be held at the end of the exercise in February 2009, which could be attended by up to 100 people, will constitute both the end of the deliberations and the launch of the work to be done by the committees that have been set up. According to the director general of the ZIP Committee, the frequency and length of the tasks will depend on the funding received and on political support from the three levels of government.

“One thing is certain,” says Ms. Rouleau, “and that is that we want to remain somewhat flexible, because what we are in the process of doing has never been done before, at least not around here. Getting people together who had never met before, and having them work together on a joint project, and leaving every meeting with a sense of accomplishment, is a first for us, and it shows just to what extent everyone really wants better planning and development for the land and resources in East-end Montreal.”

For information:

Chantal Rouleau
Jacques-Cartier ZIP Committee
14115 Prince-Arthur Street East, Suite 427
Montreal  H1A 1A8
Telephone: 514-527-9262
E-mail: zip_jc@mainbourg.org.