BY CHARLES MONTGOMERY

Residents of Brock South, in Montreal West, are not throwing out the welcome mat upon hearing that they’re getting a new neighbour.

Since 2000, the Parmalat milk production plant on St. Jacques has had the right to expand its facility to the lot which runs behind nine residential buildings on Brock South, but nothing was done. That talk has just turned to action as the company has submitted plans to the borough of NDG-CDN, which have been approved.

When seven years passed without any plans for the expansion seeing the light of day, residents, and even the borough administration thought that perhaps the company was reconsidering.

When CDN-NDG borough mayor Michael Applebaum was elected, he zoned the

proposed expansion site as residential, hoping that the company would decide not to go through with development after all.

“They asked to modify the project, we explained to them very clearly that no, the zoning did not permit for it, for us it was now residential,” said Applebaum. “But they had a right and the right was that they could build exactly as the plans were and they were not happy with that because it wasn’t meeting their requirements for today.”

Rough plans of the Parmalat development obtained from the Borough show that a large parking lot will be placed behind the Brock South homes, and directly behind the Eventide Home.

“Well the front of it (his street) is nice, but the back of it is terrible,” said Brock South resident Barry Herman. “I mean you’ve got a big huge industrial site.

“Just count the cars that they have in the front and in the back of their building now for their employees and add a few more you’ll see probably about a hundred cars and about a hundred trucks going through all night, reversing, beeping,” said Herman. He also noted the that he would probably hear the trucks’ rooftop cooling fans and smell their exhaust as well.

“I think quite clearly if you imagine now what the construction is going to look like, it is a distribution plant with a number of ports and loading bays,” said Montreal West mayor Campbell Stuart. “They’re going to have bright lights, they’re going to have cooling refrigeration units within the plant itself, and perhaps more importantly, on every single truck.”

One of the biggest concerns that residents have is of the coming and going of trucks at all hours. They predict that with the increased size of the facility, the amount of trucks using it will increase proportionally.

The Chronicle contacted a Parmalat spokesperson who said that there were no figures available on how much production and truck traffic would be increased, but Applebaum that he thought truck traffic might be lower than expected.

Applebaum said that the plant will no longer be catering to the smaller local delivery trucks. “Their production is going to be for large retailers, so there will not be the

numbers of vehicles that they were expecting when they first presented the project several years ago, which is better at least,” said Applebaum.

Applebaum did say that there would be truck traffic at odd hours, as is the standard for delivery companies, but he hopes a 16-foot-tall sound barrier installed along the west side of the plant will ease the noise pollution in the neighbourhood.

The sound barrier will be installed some distance from the backyards of the Brock South properties, which Applebaum says may increase the size of those residents’ yards. No scale is indicated on the plan obtained by The Chronicle but an estimation by eye puts the wall at roughly eight to 15 feet back from the yards.

“It’s not going to stop anything,” said Herman. He noted that currently he can hear all the noise from the trucks which travels over a sound wall, across a large vacant lot and into his home.

Stuart said that in the spring of 2006, after being approached by concerned citizens, he sought a legal opinion for the town to see if they could fight the development. The answer, he said, was “a flat no.”

“We could try and take out injunctions for this that and the other, but you don’t take out injunctions and spend 50 grand on things that you know have little chance, if any, of succeeding,” said Stuart.

“My role as the mayor and the role of our administration is to watch them like a hawk and try and work with NDG-Côte-des-Neiges to make sure that they also ... are going to be watching them like hawks,” said Stuart.

Applebaum also said that if Montreal West residents noted any irregularities

during construction, they could contact his office or the Borough’s permit deparment.