CHAPTER TWO The Montréal Harbourfront Area The City and the St. Lawrence – Analysis of Development Issues and Potential

2.1 Boundaries of the Montréal harbourfront area

include the sectors com- In short, the task will be to design a major urban HARBOURFRONT COMPONENTS prising the area of the CN renewal project while avoiding the pitfall of planning Point St. Charles shops, the the development of one sector in isolation from the banks of the other sectors. For example, it would be unfortunate if A. Park west to Des Seigneurs the urban park and promenade at the Old Port were B. CN and yards , Griffintown, Old transformed into a basically recreational and tourist C. Hotel district Montréal, Faubourg site tailored to the organization of major public events, D. Entertainment district Québec and Faubourg des at the expense of Old Montréal's historic neighbour- E. Viger area/Faubourg Québec Récollets. This was to hoods. These neighbourhoods are gradually becoming F. Cité du Havre ensure that the project was a viable place to live again; residents want a vibrant G. Lachine Canal well integrated with the urban lifestyle but do not want to feel like they are neighbourhoods adjacent to living in a kind of Disneyland. H. Cité Multimédia/ Faubourg des Récollets the harbourfront. 30 This more integrated way of envisaging the develop- I. Quartier international As Figure 2.2 shows, the ment of the harbourfront is one of the reasons for J. Old Montréal /Old Port harbourfront area is deciding to expand the target area. K. Griffintown squeezed between the St. L. Windmill Point Pier Lawrence River and major Another equally important reason for this decision was M. Bickerdike Pier land transportation infra- the enormous development potential of the fragmented N. Peel Basin structure. Railway tracks, and isolated areas along the Bonaventure and Ville- O. Point St. Charles the CN Point St. Charles Marie expressways. The SHM believes that it is crucial freight yard and the to co-ordinate the redevelopment of these sectors, for P. Northern end of Nuns' Island Bonaventure and Ville- they serve as interfaces between the downtown core, Figure 2.1 Q. Tate and Wellington basin area Marie expressways form Boundaries and Point St. Charles, the entertainment district/Faubourg subsectors of R. Canada Post property urban barriers that hinder Saint-Laurent and Centre-Sud neighbourhood and the harbourfront S. Port of railway yard the development of the harbourfront per se. planning area. T. Seaway harbourfront and make U. Technoparc access difficult. Therefore, it is necessary to pursue an integrated V. Faubourg Saint-Laurent development project that, to our mind, is much more The stated objective for promising, while also establishing a framework of over 25 years, of restoring sustainable development. Map: Multiconcept Graphisme Inc. Montrealers' access to the river and its banks, will require a major effort to rede- velop the fragmented and isolated urban areas south of The 10-km2 planning area of the SHM, shown with a Technoparc and northern tip of Nuns' Island. The plan- downtown. dotted black line in Figure 2.1, extends from the ning area also extends south to include Saint-Hélène Champlain Bridge in the west to the junction of the and Notre-Dame islands and the St. Lawrence River If the urban renewal of the harbour- CPR and Port of Montréal spur rail lines (near Moreau itself. front is to be part of a viable long-term Street) in the east. plan, simply providing river access This area is larger than that initially proposed by the points and landscaping the riverbanks The northern limit runs along Notre-Dame Street, from City of Montréal for the harbourfront planning and will not be enough. The city must be Moreau Street to the Jacques Cartier Bridge, and then action area. After analysis and discussion, the SHM reunited with its river and the harbour- branches off to the northwest along Viger Avenue as far decided to include some of the areas identified as front must be opened up to the city. It as University Street, taking in Old Montréal, Faubourg being closely related to the harbourfront, but that were was with this vision in mind that the Québec and Faubourg des Récollets. not originally targeted as areas for action (Figure 2.2).1 SHM decided to incorporate the neigh- bourhoods adjacent to the harbour- After taking in Griffintown, west of the Bonaventure Therefore, along with the areas immediately next to the front into its area of responsibility. Figure 2.2 Expressway, the boundary runs along Ottawa Street to St. Lawrence River- Saint-Hélène and Notre-Dame Initial boundaries the Des Seigneurs Bridge over the Lachine Canal, islands, the port area near the Jacques Cartier Bridge, of the Montréal taking in the eastern part of Point St. Charles as well as the Old Port, Peel Basin, Technoparc and northern tip Harbourfront project (yellow the entrance to the Lachine Canal National Historic of Nuns' Island- which made up the scope of the ini- and orange Site, CN yards, southwestern campus of the tial project, the SHM thought it was necessary to areas)

Source: City of Montréal, Service du développement économique et du 1. City of Montréal. Le Havre de Montréal, August 2002. développement urbain, August 2002 Assessment of the Situation

2.2 The harbourfront in its river context: the St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes

Aside from the Great Lakes, the river is fed 2.2.1 The International Joint mainly by the Ottawa (2,100 m3/s) and Richelieu Commission (IJC) (355 m3/s) rivers, located immediately upstream Water level regulation in the St. Lawrence and downstream of Montréal respectively. The Figure 2.4 is managed by the International Joint St. Lawrence Richelieu flows south a considerable way to its Commission (IJC), an international River- Great source in Lake Champlain which, in turn, is bilateral organization created under the Lakes hydro- linked on its southern end to the Hudson River logical system: Boundary Waters Treaty signed by the US via the Champlain Barge Canal, thus providing a controlled and Canada in 1909 to resolve or prevent environment. direct access to . conflicts over the use of this shared Harbour Basin resource. In 1952, the IJC created the Several hydroelectric plants and control International St. Lawrence River Board of stations modify the natural flow of the Control, whose mandate is to manage water levels Figure Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence 2.3 in Lake Ontario and Lake Saint-François to ensure a River (Figure 2.4) 31 The guaranteed minimum water level for users, particularly Montréal the and St. Lawrence Seaway. harbourfront: Upstream of Lake Saint-François, gateway to the heart of three major dams on the Ontario the North portion of the St. Lawrence control American its flow: Moses-Saunders conti- nent (Cornwall), Long Sault and Iroquois. 2.2.2 Hydroelectric potential In , upstream of Lake St. Louis, As we have seen, flow rates in the St. Lawrence at the Les Cèdres and Beauharnois hydro- Source: City of Montréal, Service de la mise en valeur du territoire et du Montreal are controlled by a number of upstream electric plants control the flow at the outlet of patrimoine hydroelectric plants and control structures. Nearby Lake Saint-François. hydroelectric generating stations- Beauharnois To understand the Montréal harbourfront's geography, (1,652 MW) and Les Cèdres (135 MW) on the These infrastructure, built in the 1960s, limit water its riverine aspects must be examined. St. Lawrence River, Carillon (752 MW) on the Ottawa level variations between Cornwall and Montréal. River and Rivière-des-Prairies (48 MW) on the des Before the construction of the dams, these variations The Montréal harbourfront is the gateway to the heart PrairiesRiver- provide a total capacity of 2,587 MW. could be as great as 50 cm on Lake Saint-François of North America as well as the major cities of the east from one year to the next; today, they do not exceed Source: Dynamics and Contamination of St. Lawrence River Sediment, coast and centre of the continent. It is ideally located Recently, Hydro-Québec has been looking at the possi- 15 cm. Environment Canada, 1997. Reproduced by permission from the at the confluence of a complex hydrological network, bility of building a 372 MW run-of-river hydroelectric Minister of Public Works and Government Services Canada, 2004. of which the St. Lawrence- Great Lakes system forms plant with submerged turbines between the tip of Cité Lake St. Louis, located downstream of Lake Saint- the major part. du Havre and Île Sainte-Hélène, just downstream of François, is fed both by the Great Lakes and the the Concorde Bridge. Ottawa River, the latter's flow controlled by the Between Cornwall, Ontario, and Baie-Comeau, Carillon hydroelectric plant. Lake St. Louis is strongly Quebec, where the river gives way to the estuary, the This project, which was been postponed indefinitely The completed project, however, would have allowed affected by extreme seasonal variations in high water mean annual flow2 of the St. Lawrence increases from when it was decided to go ahead with the construction much more user-friendly development of the riverbanks on the Ottawa River, where the flow rate ranges from 7,800 m3/s to 16,800 m3/s due to the contribution of its of the Suroît thermal generating station in Beauharnois and boating and other water activities in the resulting 306 m3/s during low water periods to 8,190 m3/s main tributaries, the Ottawa, Saguenay, Manicouagan, (800 MW), would have created an immense basin artificial basin. during flood periods. Saint-Maurice and Outardes rivers. At Montréal, the stretching from upstream of the Concorde Bridge to the median flow for the last thirty years has been between foot of the Lachine Rapids. In short, the St. Lawrence River is highly regulated by a 8,000 m3/s and 12,000 m3/s. 3 series of control structures and stakeholders with a Much less ambitious than the initial Archipel Project,4 major interest in the river. The latter include the Port of which was to be located farther upstream, this project Montreal, operators and clients of the St. Lawrence Seaway, Hydro-Québec and the various levels of 2. Source: St. Lawrence Info sheet entitled Flows of the St. Lawrence River and its Main Tributaries, produced by the would have had major repercussions on the river's St. Lawrence Centre. environment and ecosystems. government (US, Canadian, states and provinces) that benefit economically from the river. The St. Lawrence- 3. Source: Ministère de l'Environnement, Centre d'expertise hydrique du Québec, Suivi des données hydrométriques; débit à la station Montréal (LaSalle). The water level would be five metres higher in front of Great Lakes complex is a very strategic waterway that Montréal and its harbourfront have been able to greatly 4. This major integrated project to regulate the flow of the St. Lawrence, produce energy and develop the riverbanks for the facility but would decrease gradually to zero at the recreation, directed by the Secrétariat Archipel (an interdepartmental committee under the Parti Québécois government), foot of the rapids. The project would also have affected benefit from up to now. initially consisted of 21 works, including two hydroelectric plants producing a total of 1,441 MW and the development of the the Sainte-Marie current, a stretch of turbulent water Laprairie Basin at an estimated cost of $3.6 billion (1984 dollars). Between 1979 and 1986, the year when the final report was off the Old Port and formerly an obligatory stop for tabled, the project became significantly less ambitious due to the cost factor. The final report, among other things, called for explorers and the founders of Montréal. the construction of a 418-MW hydroelectric plant. Since the entire project's feasibility depended on revenue from the production of electricity, the project was deemed to be unfeasible and was abandoned by the Quebec government. The City and the St. Lawrence – Analysis of Development Issues and Potential

2.3 The highly altered natural shoreline of the harbourfront: the importance of fill

The strategic location of the Montréal harbour- Very limited access to the shoreline front has transformed the historical and Figure 2.7 Of the harbourfront area's 31 km of shoreline, 22 km natural landscape of the area. The shores are still inaccessible. The presence of port and highway Figure 2.5 Successive waves of development of Nuns' Riverbank infrastructure (the Bonaventure Expressway in the during the 19th and 20th centuries Island are nat- with fill in the ural, but those Technoparc sector), the height and steepness of land- Technoparc. resulted in a harbourfront with around filled banks and the lack of facilities providing easy massive infrastructure serving indus- Champlain access to the riverbanks are some of the constraints or try and international port activities Bridge are built up obstacles preventing Montrealers from reclaiming their related to the transshipment of cargo . with fill. river and shoreline. The harbourfront's current shorelines reflect this development. Access to the St. Lawrence River and its banks, and the effort to create a closer relationship between Montréal During the past century and a half, the gradual addi- and its river, are objectives that are at the very heart of 32 5 tion of piers producing the current configuration, the the SHM's mandate. creation of a huge dump south of Point St. Charles (formerly owned by the port authority and now called the Technoparc) and the infilling of islands for the world fair have radically transformed the river's shoreline.

Figure 2.8 Figure 2.10 shows the extent of landfilled Western end areas (in grey) compared with the approxi- of Île Sainte- mate outlines of the original shoreline (in Hélène. dark blue).

The Montreal harbourfront's only remaining natural shoreline is on the northern tip of Nuns' Island, where the shoreline has not Figure 2.6 been significantly altered. Elsewhere, the shore- Filled area line has been filled in and, indeed, nearly half on Île Saint- Hélène. of the harbourfront area is built on landfill. On Île Sainte-Hélène, Île Notre-Dame and Cité du Havre, the clean landfill came mainly from excavations for the Montréal and Décarie Expressway. Given the history of land use in the harbourfront, most of the Figure 2.9 other parts of the harbourfront no doubt Shoreline of suffer from various degrees of soil contami- Cité du Havre. nation, thus placing technical and financial constraints on development or redevelop- ment efforts that would comply with current environmental standards.

5. The McKay (Cité du Havre), Windmill, Bickerdike, Alexandra, King Edward, Jacques Cartier and Clock Tower (Bonsecours Basin) piers, digging and widening of the Lachine Canal and development of Wellington Basin (now Peel Basin). Assessment of the Situation

Figure 2.10 Original shoreline.

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