Landlords and public safety main issues of latest CDN-NDG council meeting

Several residents voiced their displeasure to the council which consisted of Project Montreal member Peter McQueen and the Union Montreal party (not including Montreal Mayor Gerald Tremblay and Michel Archambault).

One of those residents was Jill Landon who has been living in NDG for over a decade. Landon asked NDG Mayor Michael Applebaum if he would be able to put pressure on the provincial and municipal government to changes so that infractions to the housing code would be attached to buildings instead of the landlords.

According to the code, the current landlord of a given residence is responsible for it, regardless of what damages the previous landlord has done to the property.

Mayor Applebaum responded by saying that he is in talks with the provincial government to lay down harsher penalties in an effort to hold delinquent landlords more responsible as it relates to the treatment of their property, because in his opinion, the current laws were not enough. “There are still landlords that refuse to do repairs, and use the laws that are in place to delay the process of having to pay fines. I am looking to change the laws so that so not only can we speed up the process so that they do not get a chance to sell, but in the event that they do manage to sell the property, they will still have to pay a $5,000 fine.”

Landon was in favor of the fine, but she still wanted more results. “The fine is fair and I am glad they are working on it, but I’ll be happy when I see something done.”

Margaret Prince is another NDG resident who finds herself in a similar situation to Landon.

Prince who lives on Grand Boulevard, listed loud noises, drugs, flooding, and a leak in her ceiling that “stops my upstairs neighbour from taking a bath” as just some of the problems she currently faces in her apartment.

Prince is fed up as she feels that her complaints have fallen on deaf ears. “This is ridiculous. They tell me it’s a municipal problem, so I made a list of all the problems that were going on in my apartment and in my building, and I gave it to the city. They replied by saying that my list was too long.” For handicapped NDG resident Joseph Gaciano, travelling on the sidewalks of Decarie Boulevard is something that he fears, because he feels that the street has turned into a racetrack due to the number of cyclists who ride their bikes on the sidewalks instead of on the roads. “Cyclists are hijacking the sidewalks on Decarie,” Said Gaciano. “They are using it like their own little playground. I am afraid not only for myself, but also for other pedestrians. Somebody could get hurt, or even die.”

Mayor Applebaum countered by saying that over the last couple of years the city has hired one hundred and thirty three officers to deal with traffic problems which includes cyclists.

Although Gaciano was happy that the city was trying to deal with the problem, he felt that more measures could be taken. “Yes there are more police that are patrolling the streets, but it seems to be a cat and mouse game between the cops and the cyclists.” My wish would be for the police to actually catch a few cyclists and let them know that it’s not right, and it’s selfish for them to be using the sidewalks.”

The youngest person to address the council on the evening was 13 year-old Emma Dickson Cahn.

One of the concerns that Cahn raised, was that she felt there are too many people at Vendome metro station, and with the upcoming construction of the super hospital right next to the metro station, the problem would only worsen.

She asked NDG City Councillor elected official Peter McQueen what could be done to expand the metro station so that the circulation would not be a problem. “There are already a lot of students and working people who use Vendome, and we are already squished together. When the hospital gets built, I’m sure there will be even more people that work at the hospital that will use the bus, metro, and train to get to work, so I was wondering what we could do to expand it.”

McQueen said that there is a plan in place by the McGill University Health Care Centre to expand the station. “The plan is to put a whole new second entrance at the east end of where the tunnel ends, it would be a bit closer towards Claremont. They are also looking at putting a tunnel under the track that would go into the hospital grounds, because the MUHC realizes there are too many people using the one exit.”

Only time will tell whether the planned entrance or even the hospital itself will ever be constructed.

The next scheduled meeting for the council will take place on Monday April 12th at the Centre Le Manoir, located at 5913 Notre-Dame-de-Grace.