As reported in the Montreal Gazette, developers behind a proposed 5,500-unit housing project in western Pierrefonds are suing Mayor Valérie Plante and the City of Montreal for $178 million in damages, accusing them of committing “disguised expropriation” by blocking their project in an attempt to preserve the land and create the “biggest municipal park in Canada.”

Plante’s party, Projet Montréal, and the borough of Pierrefonds-Roxboro are also named in the lawsuit.

In the suit, deposited Sept. 20, lawyers for the developers list their efforts over the past 14 years to get approval to build a housing project called Cap-Nature Pierrefonds-Ouest. The suit follows a lawyer’s letter sent to the city in August threatening a lawsuit if a compromise could not be reached.

The developers — Développements Pierrefonds Inc., Les Immeubles l’Équerre Inc. and Quartier de l’Ouest de l’Île — own 360 hectares of land in the zone where the city intends to create the Grand Parc de l’Ouest, or the Great Western Park, announced by Plante in mid-August.

The developers say they’ve spent millions in planning and negotiated for years to build the project, even though it is within the Rivière à l’Orme “eco-territory,” a conservation area the city created in 2004.

Former mayor Denis Coderre announced in 2015 the project could go ahead on 180 hectares of the developers’ land, as long as the they agreed to donate an adjacent 180 hectares for the conservation area.

But Projet Montréal has long opposed the project. The lawsuit notes that in June 2015, the party, then under the interim leadership of Luc Ferrandez, published on its website a statement claiming the promoters were “linked to the Mafia.” The suit says Plante repeated these allegations, which the developers say are untrue, on her personal Facebook page.

In May 2017, Plante promised, if elected mayor, to block the Cap-Nature project and create a huge urban park instead.

Keep reading and watch the news video on the Montreal Gazette website