Thursday, March 28, 2024
  • Revizto - Leaderboard - March and April
  • Procore - Leaderboard - Jan 2022
  • Premier Leaderboard - updated Nov 19
  • Dentec - Leaderboard - 2023 - Updated
  • Keith Walking Floor - Leaderboard - Sept 2021
  • CWRE 2024 - Leaderboard
  • IAPMO R&T Lab - Leaderboard
January 16, 2019

Mixed high-density development needed around future REM stations in the West Island

 

 

The West Island is well known for its single-family home neighbourhoods, but with the impending arrival of four Réseau express métropolitain (REM) stations along Highway 40, the time is nigh to compromise and accept some central transit oriented development (TOD) projects.

Beaconsfield Mayor Georges Bourelle, in a fall 2016 interview with the West Island Gazette, summed up the public backlash to any potential high-density development around future REM stations.

“When your neighbourhood is about single-family dwellings, people get alarmed with the concept of densification,” he said.

Two stations are planned for Pointe-Claire (Sources Blvd. and Fairview Ave.), as well as stops in Kirkland (adjacent to the mall/cinema along Jean-Yves St.) and Ste-Anne-de Bellevue (Ste-Marie Road).

The West Island will also be served by REM stations at the airport in Dorval and two stations that will run through Pierrefonds as part of the REM’s Deux-Montagnes leg which heads north.

While Pointe-Claire’s housing market has expanded with various townhouse or condominiumprojects (either completed or ongoing near Hymus Blvd. as well as on Brunswick Blvd. facing the Fairview shopping centre), the city also sees the potential mixed-use development of vacant land between the highway service road and Brunswick Blvd., just west of Fairview Ave.

A potential 800-unit residential development in neighbouring Kirkland, on part of the former Merck campus, was scuttled around two years ago after facing stiff resistance from residents who opposed the condominium and townhouse project which was being promoted by property owner Broccolini. So, under the existing industrial zoning, Broccolini moved ahead unimpeded with demolition of some obsolete edifices. It then revamped the main office building that is now anchored by its first tenant, Traffic Tech.

Hopefully, a new scaled-down, multi-unit residential project on the former Merck campus will be proposed and accepted. Such a development would compliment and be served by the future REM stations.

Keep reading in the Montreal Gazette

 


Watch the video and learn more about the benefits of joining Construction Links Network – the peer-to-peer network sharing platform for the construction, building and design community.

Ideal for YOUR Press Releases | Project Updates | New Appointments | Awards & Milestones | Company News | New Products/Services | Brochures | Videos | Infographics | Blog Sharing | Events and More