A network in Saint-Henri is still fighting a plan to rebuild Canada’s former malting plant.
Organizations and citizens have been mobilizing against high-end condos for nearly a decade and don’t plan to prevent it anytime soon.
Since 2013, the networked organization Solidarité St-Henri has been calling on the City to withdraw from the speculative real estate market.
“What’s another now is the housing crisis in Montreal,” said Shannon Franssen, the group’s network progression coordinator. “This is a time when the city has to act and it has to act now. “
The estate is owned by a personal holding company that seeks to convert the domain into 160 housing complexes for families and another 60 reserved for social housing. Also included were a kindergarten, offices, an art studio and a park. years ago.
“They’re just sitting on it, letting it deteriorate, it doesn’t give anything to satisfy the neighborhood’s desires,” Franssen said. “We want to pressure the owners to do something different with the site. “
In March 2020, Solidarité Saint-Henri proposed its own plan that included two hundred rental units, a nursery, networked gardens and a museum.
“This is the last major site in Saint-Henri that can house more than two hundred social housing units, that’s what we want from the neighborhood, so we won’t let our applications for this site pass,” Franssen added.
The residents are very gentrified by Saint-Henri.
We were here before all the newcomers and they throw us away like garbage,” Micheline Girard said. “I am a domain here. . . it deserves to be ours. “
The organization asked the town to pass a municipal ordinance, which would facilitate their ability to win the site. But not so far.
“If it’s really a priority for them to expand the city so that they don’t just line the wallet of real estate expanders, they have to take this site off the market today,” Franssen said.
A city spokesman told Global News that no final resolution had been made for the site.