The photo above shows the old CN yards in Pointe-St-Charles, with Goose Village in the bottom right-hand corner. At the bottom of the photo is the entrance to the Victoria Bridge, and the Bonventure Expressway has yet to be constructed, allowing us to assume the picture dates from some time in the early 1960s. Along with Griffintown, (which is technically out of frame in this picture, though the name has been applied to most of the industrial zone immediately south of the city, straddling the Lachine Canal), this area, once known as Victoriatown and/or Goose Village, is also slated for eventual residential redevelopment. Though the Montréal Technoparc finds itself primarily to the south of Rue Marc-Cantin, it’s safe to assume the small wedge of industrial space between Bridge Street, the Canal and the Expressway will likely get the go-ahead for urban redevelopment once the Canada Lands Corporation project goes through. By extension, all the land south of Wellington between Bridge Street and the entrance to the Champlain Bridge will also likely be slated for redevelopment. Most of this rather large area is built on what was once a massive garbage dump. It is, as you can imagine, highly polluted.

This combined area could support significant population growth and is the most likely extension of what we define as Montréal’s ‘downtown’. Aside from the fact that it’s extremely well connected to the city (consider, it only takes about twenty minutes to walk from Dorchester Square to the Peel Basin), large tracts of land zoned for light industry have left the area without much of an architectural heritage, as many of these buildings are highly functional in nature and were constructed recently, which means they’re easy to demolish and replace with new residential zones. Consider how many formerly industrial buildings in this city, within proximity of the downtown, are currently residential; the list is staggering, a testament to our interest in recycling and breathing new life into old factories and warehouses.

So what’s the problem you may be asking? Land suitable for new development is at a premium and it makes a lot of sense to pursue developing the southern sector of the city for residential purposes. Moreover, such a plan could be argued from the standpoint that the city made an error forty years ago declaring this land industrial, and such development is necessary if we wish to correct a ‘historic injustice’. I don’t doubt for a second this last point has been passed around enough board-room meetings, especially with regards to Griffintown.

The Committee for the Sustainable Redevelopment of Griffintown has some excellent ideas and makes solid arguments for a ‘smarter’ development of this area, as most proposals have not adequately considered the few, though significant, heritage sites to be found there. Moreover, there seems to have been zero consideration for the fact that unused light-industrial space can be excellent lofts and studios for our artistic community, one which must be fostered at all costs. But underlying all aspects and concerns pertinent to southern redevelopment, we must ask whether the city was trying to do its citizens a favour by declaring this land industrial in the first place and rendering it unsuitable for living until such a time as the pollutants could be cleaned up? Was it slum clearance, or was it a harsh environmental reality?

Alanah Heffez over at Spacing Montréal wrote an amazing article on the extension of the shoreline in this area between 1890 and 1968, and the environmental concerns which affect this area. Great read, highly recommended. As to residential development in the centre-sud sector, it seems almost all projects slated for this area are either on hiatus or back on the drawing board while the developers try to pull together enough coin. Either way, it’s encouraging to see the high degree of public consultation.