City given right to take land for park
The city of Montreal has the goahead to expropriate a parcel of land at Ste-Catherine St. W. and Mackay St. downtown for a park.
A Quebec Superior Court judge ruled in the city’s favour last week after the owner, Prime Properties Inc., contested the municipality’s right to register a reserve on its two-storey commercial building at the northeast corner of the intersection for future expropriation.
Immeubles Prime also argued Concordia University, which built a complex on the northwest corner of Mackay and Ste-Catherine, across the street from the property, had pressured the Ville-Marie borough to ask the city to create the reserve. The university has expressed a desire to see the corner turned into a park.
However, in a 23-page ruling rendered on Dec. 7, Judge Lukasz Granosik declared Montreal was within its right because the borough and the city are seeking to expand the public domain in the public interest.
The ruling also says there was no demonstration of an irregularity in the borough’s decision-making process.
The city had registered a reserve on the land for future expropriation in January 2015 following a borough council resolution seeking the reserve.
Prime Properties bought the lots that make up its property in 1998 and 2009. The company has tried for years to get a project off the ground to demolish the existing building and construct a residential and commercial edifice.
The company attempted three times to get a municipal permit over the years before obtaining the necessary authorization in 2011. However, at that point, the company was unable to evict the building’s tenants to move ahead with its project, the ruling says.
Prime Properties then contacted the city in 2014 to say it was launching a new project. However, the same year, the city announced a project to redo the west end of Ste-Catherine. At that point, Concordia reiterated its wish to see the corner turned into a park, the ruling says.
Stéphane Febbrari Vermette, whose group, Interaction du quartier Peter-McGill, has been active in lobbying the city to create more park space in western downtown, said on Saturday his group doesn’t have a position on the Ste-Catherine/Mackay park debate.
However, Febbrari Vermette said he’s in favour of building a park on the corner.
“It’s an interesting spot for a park,” he said. Peter-McGill district includes the western end of SteCatherine as well as the site of the former Franciscan church, where the administration of Mayor Denis Coderre has approved a project for twin skyscraper condo towers over the objections of local residents, who wanted the site preserved as a park.
South of Sherbrooke St. W., the western downtown district has more than 20,000 inhabitants, including families, and no sports field, Febbrari Vermette said.
“So the corner (of Ste-Catherine and Mackay) could be an interesting place to have such an installation.”
Judge Lukasz Granosik declared Montreal was within its right because the borough and the city are seeking to expand the public domain in the public interest.