NDG on the agenda at the 5th annual Montreal Citizen Summit

Published on June 8th, 2009

Published on Febuary 9th, 2010

Adam Bemma

Making NDG a more sustainable community was a major topic of discussion at the 5th annual Montreal Citizen Summit titled “The City We Want”, which took place at UQAM June 6-7.

A Saturday afternoon session hosted by Montreal Urban Community Sustainment (MUCS) brought residents and curious minds together to learn about their “community design project” on Northcliffe Avenue, across the street from the Queen Elizabeth Health Complex. “NDG is an interesting lab for these kinds of experiments. I think that NDG is a great playground for us,” said Julia Delrieu, a MUCS organizer and facilitator of the session.

MUCS started working in NDG in 2004, mostly with the housing committee and a few other organizations concerned about the lack of affordable housing in the area. Since then they’ve moved their base of operations to NDG and have now found a suitable location for a project that will fulfill their goals of sustainable development. “The building will have a community component, offices for community organizations and a strong community housing component,” Delrieu said.

The whole purpose of this MUCS project will be to implement their “integrated design process” an approach that links everybody involved in “green” development every step of the way by taking into consideration the social and economic aspects of sustainability.

Spencer Mann lives in NDG and coordinated this design concept with MUCS over five years ago and he believes that applying it at this specific site is a great idea. “This project will benefit many people in the community,” he said. “The borough is considering other plans for the development of facilities. Most of those projects don’t include space for offices or organizing space.”

According to Mann, they’re still at the pre-design phase of development at the Northcliffe Ave. site, but he mentions how a shared resource like this in NDG would be welcomed. “We’ve been doing a lot of research about the needs in the neighbourhood,” he said. “We’re waiting on more approval and support from the owner of the site before we continue.”

Local activist turned Projet Montreal candidate in the next municipal election, Peter McQueen, sat in on this discussion and found it exemplary as a new kind of development that should take place in NDG. “It would be a more urban Benny Farm project on a smaller scale,” he said. “Hopefully they can make some progress and get that next level of support.”

Mann says this is the third attempt by MUCS at creating a “shared community centre” in NDG and he hopes once it is completed it will provide affordable housing and office space to many. “We’ve been working with city staff on planning issues around the project.” he said. “Before this would ever be built, there would need to be a public assembly or consultation about some of the zoning changes that it might require.”

The 5th annual Montreal Citizen Summit was a public forum that included many participants and discussions on the future of the city. Dozens of activities were organized over the course of the two day summit, which had individuals and community groups like MUCS give presentations on topics with city-wide interest. “There’s no question that this [Citizen Summit] brings a lot of people together and spreads ideas,” Peter McQueen said. “It can be a bit of preaching to the converted because all the progressives in the city are here.”