Providing a home and then some: A study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme
Supervised Research Project submitted in partial fulfillment of the Master of Urban Planning degree
By Brendan James Pinches
School of Urban Planning McGill University Montreal, Quebec, Canada
September 2010
2 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of tables 5 List of figures 5 List of charts 5 Abstract 7 Résumé 8 Acknowledgments 9 1. Introduction and overview 11 2. Methodology 13 3. Literature review 15 3.1. Government involvement in Canada’s housing system 15 3.1.1. The rationale for government involvement in housing 3.1.2. The Canadian housing policy context 3.1.3. Canada’s reliance on the market system 3.1.4. The downloading of social housing responsibilities 3.1.5. Affordability 3.2. City-building 22 4. Montreal context 24 4.1. History of the Island City 24 4.1.1. Residential character: the plex 4.1.2. Suburban competition 4.1.3. The Montreal megacity 4.1.4. Revitalisation strategies 4.2. Recent Municipal efforts 29 5. Access to homeownership: programme history and evolution 32 5.1. Introduction to the AH programme 32 5.2. Tax credits 32 5.3. Direct grants 34 5.4. Recent changes 35 6. Analysis: outcomes and their congruency with the master plan 39 6.1. Outcomes 39 6.1.1. General distribution of grant recipient properties 6.1.2. Areas of concentration 6.1.2.1. Ville-Marie and Mercier - Hochelaga-Maisonneuve 6.1.2.2. Ville Marie, Le Plateau-Mont-Royal, Rosemont - La Petite-Patrie, Villeray - Saint-Michel - Parc-Extension, and Ahuntsic-Cartierville 6.1.2.3. Le Sud-Ouest and Verdun 6.1.2.4. Rivière des Prairies - Pointe-aux-Trembles 6.1.2.5. Other areas 6.1.3. The composition of grant recipient household types 6.1.4. The distribution of household types by Montréal boroughs 6.1.5. The types of housing units purchased 6.1.5.1. Small buildings and plexes 6.1.5.2. Large buildings
4 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme
TABLE OF CONTENTS (continued)
6.2. Congruency of AH programme outcomes with the Montréal master plan 59 6.2.1. Planning approach 6.2.2. Intensification near transit infrastructure 6.2.3. Revitalisation 6.3. Other factors influencing the spatial distribution of AH grant recipient addresses 7. Evaluation 71 8. Conclusion 105 8.1. Summary 106 8.2. Recommendations 110 8.3. Future Research 112 Appendices Appendix A: Homeownership – tax credit 114 Appendix B: Homeownership – direct grant – 2003 version 115 Appendix C: Homeownership – direct grant - 2010 version 116 Appendix D: Synthesis of goals and objectives 117 Appendix E: Synthesis of actions 118 Appendix F: HUF - Unit Design Criteria for Proposed Projects 119 Image sources 121 Bibliography 123
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LIST OF TABLES
Table 1 Changes and Consistencies of the AH Programme 38 Table 2 Master Plan initiatives supported by AH grant recipients 72, 73
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1 Traditional and contemporary plex facades 25 Figure 2 AH grant recipients and the Montreal metro and suburban train 40 lines Figure 3 AH grant recipients and Montreal population density 41 Figure 4 New development on Ontario Street 45 Figure 5 Renovated building on Rene Levesque 45 Figure 6 Building heights of grant recipient addresses 55 Figure 7 Typical new, three-story condo building 56 Figure 8 Wilson Street in Lachine: dizzying repetition 57 Figure 9 Example of small-scale infill 57 Figure 10 Grant recipients within 500 metres of metro or train station 63 Figure 11 Grant recipients near main roads 64 Figure 12 Grant recipient addresses in areas where more intense land 65 development is favoured Figure 13 Revitalisation areas and grant recipient locations 66 Figure 14 NOVO's linear park 75 Figure 15 Terrace on Cote-des-Neiges 78 Figure 16 Part of Axxco's large-scale infill development 79 Figure 17 An example of adaptive reuse in Parc-Extension 81 Figure 18 SHDM's first development in CDN-NDG 83 Figure 19 McGill Ouest: high-priced, with small footprint 86 Figure 20 Lowney, Phase III 88 Figure 21 Quai de la Commune, Phase V 89 Figure 22 SHDM's Square Cartier, Phase I 91 Figure 23 The final phases of the Angus project 93 Figure 24 Illustration of a restored Imperial building 96 Figure 25 Place Simon Valois, public space enclosed with new development 99 Figure 26 The former Viau cookie factory 101 Figure 27 Le Quai des éclusiers, on the edge of the Lachine Canal 103 Figure 28 Access Condo web advertisement 108
LIST OF CHARTS
Chart 1 Distribution of grant recipients by borough 49 Chart 2 Distribution of grant recipients by household type 52
6 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme
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ABSTRACT Public programmes aimed at stimulating homeownership through subsidies have become a popular tool for urban municipalities in North America looking to “reurbanise” or “revitalise” their cities. Convincing prospective homebuyers to purchase housing serves to invigorate the local economy and increase property tax revenues for the sponsor municipality. These programmes also have an indirect influence on the transformation of the built form within their jurisdictions. The purpose of this study is to examine the built form that has emerged with the support (intentional or otherwise) of Montréal’s Access to Homeownership (AH) programme, and evaluate whether these results are contributing to the operationalisation of Master Plan Actions. Data provided by the operator of the programme, Montréal’s Service de la mise en valeur du territoire et du patrimoine (SMVTP), was analysed to reveal (a) where Accession grant recipients have located themselves; (b) the composition of grant recipient household types; and (c) what types of housing units have been purchased by grant recipients. Grantholder addresses were found to be distributed across the Montréal territory, with areas of concentration in the City’s most populated central districts, and especially near transit infrastructure. Single-person households comprised the dominant share of AH grant recipients. Most properties purchased with the programme’s assistance were one or two-bedroom walk-up condominiums, generally located on the periphery of the City Centre. Units located in the City Centre proper, were found to have smaller floor areas and to be located in taller buildings. The AH programme has contributed to the construction of a built form that is better suited to single-person households than to households with children. In order to assess how the AH programme has contributed to the aims of the Master Plan, housing projects (home to at least one AH grant recipient) were selected to illustrate how the programme has promoted the implementation of specific Master Plan Actions. This study suggests that the AH programme has effectively supported many of the Actions listed in the Master Plan, and that it has done so in conjunction with other public and private organisations.
Keywords: Housing Policy — Affordability — Revitalisation — Consolidation — Master Plan — Montréal
8 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme
RÉSUMÉ
Les programmes pour encourager l’accès à la propriété sont devenus des outils populaires pour les municipalités en Amérique du Nord qui cherchent à revitaliser leurs centres urbains. Pour ces villes, les potentiels propriétaires sont également un moyen de revigorer l’économie locale et d’augmenter leurs revenus de taxes foncières. Ces programmes ont une influence indirecte sur la transformation du cadre bâti dans ces villes.
L’étude présentée ici examine le type d’habitation qui a émergé de manière intentionnelle ou non avec « Habiter Montréal », le programme d’accès à la propriété de la ville de Montréal. Cette analyse tente également de déterminer si le programme a contribué à l’application pratique des actions définies dans le Plan d’Urbanisme de la ville de Montréal. Les données utilisées pour les fins de cette étude ont été fournies par le Service de Mise en Valeur du Territoire et du Patrimoine (SMVTP), le département responsable du programme d’accès à la propriété à la ville de Montréal. Ces informations ont été analysées afin de révéler (a) la localisation des bénéficiaires du programme; (b) la composition des ménages subventionnés; et (c) le type d’unités d’habitation achetées par les bénéficiaires.
Les résultats obtenus permettent de tirer plusieurs conclusions. En ce qui a trait à la localisation des bénéficiaires, ces derniers sont distribués sur l’ensemble du territoire de Montréal, avec une concentration dans les arrondissements les plus peuplés près du centre-ville et des infrastructures de transport public. Les ménages composés d’un seul individu représentent la majorité des bénéficiaires d’« Habiter Montréal ». Quant aux propriétés, celles-ci sont majoritairement de type condominium en périphérie du centre-ville avec une ou deux chambres à coucher. Les unités situées au centre-ville ont généralement une superficie habitable plus petite et se trouvent dans des bâtiments de plus grand gabarit. « Habiter Montréal » a contribué à la construction d’habitations orientées davantage vers des ménages composés d’un seul individu que pour les familles. Des projets immobiliers ont été choisis pour illustrer comment « Habiter Montréal » promeut les actions et atteint les objectifs du Plan d’Urbanisme. Les projets domiciliaires choisis avaient pour critères qu’un minimum d’un bénéficiaire au programme doive y résider. L’étude suggère que le programme supporte plusieurs des actions définies dans le Plan d’Urbanisme et qu’il en est ainsi grâce à la collaboration de tierces organisations publiques et privées.
Mots-clés: Politique d’habitation – accessibilité - revitalisation – consolidation - Plan d’urbanisme - Montréal 9 Brendan Pinches
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank my supervising Professor, Dr. Raphaël Fischler for his support and direction. I would also like to thank Professor Nik Luka for selecting me as a Research Assistant in the summer of 2009. The research was as diverse and intriguing as the City of Montreal itself, and it allowed me to see and document parts of the City that I otherwise never would have known.
Special acknowledgements go to Raphael Villarreal, for providing his G.I.S. expertise, and to Yan Claprood, for providing a French translation of my abstract.
To my parents: you will never know how much I needed your prayers and prodding to carry on with my research project. Thanks for all your support.
Lastly, I would like to thank my family: Isla, Emery, Anaya and especially my wife, Renny Olfert. Thank you for the love and encouragement during graduate school. It has been a challenging experience, but it was wonderful to have you by my side.
This study fits within the greater aims of Professor Nik Luka’s Whole-Corridor Urban Design Strategy (WCUDS) project, and emerged from his work with Martin Wexler and François Cadotte of the City’s Division de l’habitation in the SMVTP, under the working title of Making space in the city: a study of the architectural and city-building effects of Montréal's Accession to homeownership programme. Funding for the WCUDS project was provided by the Volvo Research and Education Foundations.
10 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme
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1. INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW
For the past 20 years, the City of Montréal has supported an assisted homeownership programme. Over
this period of time, evidence suggests that the Access to Homeownership (AH) programme has been
successful in terms of securing access to homeownership for Montréal households and increasing new
housing starts in a city historically dominated by renters. This study evaluates how the AH programme
functions not only as an instrument for increasing access to affordable housing for first-time
homebuyers, but also as a tool of city-building. The AH programme has an indirect influence on the
transformation of the built form within the Montréal territory, as it stimulates the demand for housing
and by extension encourages the development of a housing supply to meet this demand. The
programme’s city-building function is important, both in terms of its congruence with overarching
Montréal policies and with respect to the operationalisation of Master Plan objectives. Montréal’s
Master Plan is the “municipal reference document for any action pertaining to urban development
within the City” (Ville de Montréal, 2004: 10) and as such, all other plans, policies and programmes of
the City should align with it. At its most basic level, this project fills an important information gap, as the
City’s administration does not have a clear sense of the locations or types of buildings that AH grant
recipients have opted to reside in. There is a need to map the locations of grant recipient addresses
across the Island of Montréal and to understand why the spatial distribution of grant recipient addresses
is what it is. There is also a need to identify the conformities between the spatial distribution of AH grant
recipients and factors highlighted in the Master Plan. Responding to these questions will also provide
clarity as to why some projects have attracted more such households than others. At a more detailed
level of study this project will examine the built form that has emerged with the support (intentional or
otherwise) of the AH programme, and determine whether the programme is influencing the kind of
changes described in the specific Actions of the Master Plan.
12 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme
A three-part research strategy was employed consisting of a literature review, analysis of data from Montréal’s Access to Homeownership programme and an evaluation of how the results of the
Access to Homeownership programme support the aims of the Master Plan.
This report begins with a literature review, which outlines the history of housing policy in
Canada. I will then situate the Access to Homeownership programme within the Montréal context, before providing a brief history of the programme and its aims. A section presenting general results from the analysis of AH programme data extends a basic understanding of the programme’s contribution to the municipal housing supply. As a means of further evaluating the extent to which the
AH programme acts as a tool of city building, the following section profiles housing projects that fulfill the Master Plan Actions related to housing. The conclusion of the report includes a summary of key findings and comments regarding the future implementation of the AH programme.
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2. METHODOLOGY
This study employs a mixed-methods assessment approach to address the implementation of policy and
programmes that have urban design implications. Elements of both quantitative and qualitative
research are applicable because this study is positioned at the nexus of urban design and policy
planning. Statistics and mapped data assist in the description and analysis of the quantitative results of
the AH programme. Further evaluation of the AH programme is based on investigation, observation, and
interpretation of selected projects that exhibit certain characteristics or were built in certain contexts.
Literature Review
The purpose of this literature review is to provide an overview of significant events and established
ideas relevant to the formation of housing policy and programmes in Canada. This section includes a
description of the historic emergence of Canadian housing policy, an explanation of how housing policy-
making has been delegated within various levels of government in Canada, and account of the ways in
which housing policy and its associated programs have acted as instruments of city-building. The
literature review will be followed by a section focusing specifically on the Montréal context. Here I will
provide a description of key events in the history of the city that have shaped its municipal housing
policies and programmes.
Analysis
The purpose of this analysis section is to examine the spatial distribution of the grant recipient
households and determine what significance this distribution may have vis-à-vis factors highlighted in
the Master Plan (i.e. intensification areas, revitalisation areas, major roads, and metro/train lines). This
analysis makes us of a set of data provided by the Montréal’s Service de la mise en valeur du territoire et
14 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme du patrimoine (SMVTP), which includes a list of civic addresses of the beneficiaries of the City of
Montréal’s AH programme between 2003 and 2008, excluding those recipients who have moved or sold the housing unit for which they received financial assistance. The SMVTP data also includes the household type that corresponds to each grant recipient address, information that was volunteered during the grant application process. Residential units that were purchased with AH grants have been mapped with ArcGIS and documented on Google Earth (including Google Street View), allowing me to graphically illustrate the gathered data and document specific projects (e.g. proximity to metro station, or calculate the number of storeys).
Evaluation
Montréal’s official planning priorities for land use, transit and housing are declared in its Master Plan.
These priorities are listed in the Plan as Goals, Objectives, and most specifically Actions. When these
Actions are carried out, they contribute to the fulfillment the Plan’s vision. Relevant Actions from the list, primarily those that relate to the production of new housing, serve as an evaluative screen with which to assess the “effects” of the AH programme. Given the complexity of analysing more than 3000 properties, it must be acknowledged that the example projects may not accurately represent the majority of properties within the survey sample; instead they were selected because they pertain to
Master Plan Actions and are illustrative of a range of projects in terms of size, number of residential units, regulatory complexity and other intangibles.
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3. LITERATURE REVIEW
3.1. Government involvement in Canada’s housing system
Despite government involvement at multiple levels, Canada does not have a clearly defined national
housing policy. The provision of housing in Canada comes largely by way of the private market, with a
great emphasis placed on homeownership. In spite of this reliance on the market system, it must be
recognised that the government “sets the rules of the game” (Hulchanski, 2006: 222); the housing
market operates within a housing system that is established and regulated by the state. In Canada, the
federal and municipal governments have played the largest roles. The federal government has
historically governed how Canada’s housing supply was financed and systematised (Bourne, 1996;
Hulchanski, 2006). In the post-WWII era, land-use planning regulations have increased the role played
by municipal governments. Municipalities make decisions concerning the areas to be developed, as well
as the form and density and level of servicing for areas to be built. A brief historic overview of
government involvement in the Canadian housing system will highlight the main objectives behind
Canadian housing policy and explain how housing policies and programmes have acted as instruments of
city-building. This section will also provide a transition to the next chapters of this paper that are based
on a more specific study of Montréal’s Access to Homeownership programme.
3.1.1. The rationale for government involvement in housing
Government involvement in housing can be seen as operating on two planes: primary and secondary.
Shelter is a principal human need, especially in cold-weather climates such as Canada. The fact that
housing is a fundamental need is the primary basis for government involvement in the housing system.
One definitive obligation of a social welfare state, as Canada has often been categorised, is to ensure
16 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme that all citizens are adequately housed. It is believed that a failure to meet this social need would be detrimental to the common good, as it would certainly contribute to widespread societal problems (e.g. extensive homelessness and suffering, riots in the streets, etc.). Unfortunately, providing housing to those in need is more complicated in practice than it is in theory and has proven to be difficult for the
Canadian government to manage.
The secondary rationale behind government involvement in the housing system is related to the important economic function of the housing system. All levels of government rely on the market housing system as a Keynesian tool to influence the economy (Hamel and Jouve, 2008; Rose, 2009). For example, federal and provincial levels of government have both been known to introduce short-term programmes to assist homeownership (Hulchanski, 2006). Homeownership is the central focus of Canadian housing policy, and multiple sectors of the local and national economies benefit from its increase. The creation of housing generates employment and revenue for the manufacturing, construction and retail industries. The financial sector benefits through home financing and insurance schemes, while municipalities earn revenue through property taxes (Hulchanski, 2006; Chantal and Wexler, 2004).
Homeownership represents the largest investment that most households will ever make, the most valuable asset that most will own, and a way to gain equity (Hulchanski, 2002).
3.1.2. The Canadian Housing Policy Context
In Canada, housing policy has generally been formed in reaction to national social or economic crises.
Government policy, put forth at specific points in time, has shaped the housing landscape -- be it a response to the overcrowded and unsanitary living conditions of the industrial city, a motion of support for an emerging urban reform movement, the creation of a new government agency, or a decision to delegate responsibility to a lower tier of administration. 17 Brendan Pinches
The evolution of housing policy in Canada can be traced back more than one hundred years to
the 1909 formation of the Commission of Conservation. This agency was formed to advise the Dominion
of Canada’s government, led by Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier, on the management of national
resources. At the time, surging levels of immigration had attracted a large numbers of workers to the
nation’s industrial centres. The commission brought to light the plight of the working class poor in
Canadian cities, namely the unhealthy living conditions endured due to overcrowding (Fainstein, 1999;
Wolfe, 1994, 2003). Canada’s government launched its first housing programme immediately after
World War I in response to this situation, and also to provide residences for returning soldiers. The
Dominion Government later involved itself in the provision of loans and mortgages with the issuance of
the Dominion Housing Act of 1935, a forerunner to the National Housing Act (NHA, 1938). Although
these early reforms did not lead to the production of a large amount of housing units, they established
the federal government’s participation in the practice of residential mortgage lending.
The years leading up to World War II witnessed the emergence of the planning profession in
Canada. Early planning efforts were centred around land use regulation, mainly to curb the rampant
subdivision of land on the urban fringe and to address traffic planning issues related to the rising
popularity of the automobile (Wolfe, 1994). Even without focusing specifically on housing issues, the
introduction of land use planning exhibited the possibility for municipal policies to shape the city.
Years of scarcity and resources being diverted to the war effort left Canada’s housing stock
neglected and in short supply. During and after the Second World War, extensive state involvement in
the housing system led to the formation of two new crown corporations, Wartime Housing Corporation
Ltd. (WHC) and the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation (which later became Canada Mortgage
and Housing Corporation, CMHC). The WHC was formed in 1941 to build rental housing for workers of
war-industry factories (Adams & Sijpkes, 1995). The WHC’s rapid, cost-effective construction of mass-
produced, single detached homes on previously undeveloped land, proved to be an influential
18 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme demonstration of a model for mass-produced suburbs that would proliferate across the country. Joint mortgage loans, where the federal Government partnered with private investors to back loans, allowed for expanded residential development in cases that private investors would not have solely funded.
Although joint loans were introduced earlier, in the Dominion Housing Act, the 1944 amendments to the
NHA refined the way they were structured and prepared the way for the CMHC.
The passage of the CMHC Act of 1945 led to the creation of an agency to manage and finance housing production in Canada (Wolfe, 1998). The CMHC has maintained a place of central importance in the Canadian housing system and has taken on and left behind a variety of roles: loan provider, public housing developer, housing research advisor, mortgage insurer and even urban renewal director. Since the introduction of the Bank Act of 1954, the activities of the CMHC have focused mainly on insuring bank-issued mortgage loans. The structure and stability provided by the CMHC to the housing system facilitated the expansive growth of the Canadian housing stock, as it made homeownership accessible to consumers with smaller down payments than had previously been possible. (Wolfe, 1998, 2003). During and after WWII, Canada experienced significant growth in the housing market, most of which came in the form of single-detached houses built in suburban contexts (Bourne and Bunting, 1993; Sewell, 1995).
Federal government involvement in the Canadian postwar housing system entrenched a set of characteristics that normalised both institutional engagement and a typical pattern of development that remained largely unchanged for the remainder of the twentieth century. More specifically, the attributes that became embedded within the housing system were the role of public finance, market reliance, and the primacy of homeownership.
19 Brendan Pinches
3.1.3. Canada’s reliance on the market system
“Market housing” is a label applied to residential units that are built for profit, by private-sector
construction companies. In Canada, 95 percent of households access housing through the private
market. Ownership is a dominant characteristic among households in the Canadian market housing
sector, where approximately two out of three households own the unit in which they live, with the
remaining third renting at the market rate (Hulchanski, 2006).
The five percent of Canadians who cannot afford to purchase a home or pay the market rate for
rent, exhibit a “social need” that the market does not meet (Bourne, 1993; Bourne and Bunting, 1996;
Hulchanski, 2006). The need for affordable housing is addressed by the “non-market housing” sector.
Also known as social housing, this sector includes public housing, non-profit and co-op housing.
(Hulchanski, 2006; Wolfe, 1998). A generally accepted definition for housing affordability is that a
household should not spend more than 30 percent of its annual income on housing costs. When housing
costs exceed this proportion, the assistance of government and private partners is often relied upon to
fill the housing gap. Non-market housing is created, operated, and funded through government
subsidies. Market affordable housing is situated somewhere between non-market and market housing,
and can offer modest income households an opportunity to rent or own, sometimes with the upfront
assistance of government subsidies.
3.1.4. The downloading of social housing responsibilities
The provision and management of social housing is the most direct form of government involvement in
housing markets. There are several constitutional and logistic hurdles that could conceivably prevent the
federal government from taking an active role in the Canadian housing system. For one, housing is a
highly local form of real-estate development, built within the boundaries of municipalities (Bourne and
20 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme
Bunting, 1993). Both the British North America Act of 1867 and the Constitution Act of 1982 explicitly state that cities are creatures of the province and that land use planning is within the provincial domain
(Magnusson, 2005; Wolfe, 1994, 2003). Nonetheless, the federal government’s role in housing matters is dictated more so by fiscal constraint than constitutional impediment. This is one of a number of responsibilities that were downloaded from the federal to the provincial (and effectively to the regional/municipal) level.
The Ministry of State for Urban Affairs (MSUA) was established in 1970, and at the time appeared to mark the start of an expansive new era for Canadian housing policy led by the federal government (Wolfe, 2003). The ministry’s mandate extended to policy development and research of urban affairs with the aim to coordinate and prioritise federal, provincial and municipal efforts. It was hoped that MSUA would fill in the gaps and speak to issues of national concern, like housing. Instead, with its termination in 1980, MSUA proved to be a short-lived experiment (Fallick, 1987). The cessation of MSUA was also the symbolic beginning of the federal government’s withdrawal from direct involvement in housing matters. An era of fiscal conservatism accompanied the recession of the early-
1990s in Canada and federal funding for housing programmes was slashed dramatically. Where earlier amendments to the NHA (1964, 1973) had supported the construction of a large number of public housing units and had even introduced a programme for assisted home ownership, by 1993 there was no federal support for housing at all (Hulchanski, 2002).
In 1996 the federal government transferred the responsibility of producing and managing social housing to provincial authorities. This process, called devolution or downloading, placed the responsibility of providing social housing on the shoulders of provincial housing agencies, and in many cases it was further delegated to municipalities. The cost of producing and managing social housing presents an obvious challenge to municipalities already straining to adequately maintain the provision of other core services (Grant, 1997). Out of necessity, the way that social housing is provided has 21 Brendan Pinches
continued to reform and adapt. Non-profit municipal housing corporations were established in Canadian
cities to develop and administer social housing. In general, the approach to social housing has seen key
stakeholders diversify from the state to a blend of local actors, led by municipal housing corporations,
but also including: non-profits, private and municipal co-ops, faith-based groups, and workers unions
(Rose, 2009; CMHC, 2007).
3.1.5. Affordability
The issue of affordable housing is one that captures the city-building dynamics of housing policies and
programmes. Despite the lack of consensus surrounding the definition of “affordability”, concern about
the affordablility of homeownership has been a driving force behind the formation of policy at various
points in time in Canada and elsewhere (Hancock, 1993). As described earlier in this section, the postwar
pattern of suburban expansion was the result of government policy. The housing system was formed to
effectively replenish and modernise Canada’s housing stock. In this regard, a large number of single-
family dwellings have been produced and purchased within the financial means of middle-class
households. Notwithstanding this achievement, it can be argued that systemic barriers to alternative
funding models and the development of a diverse range of housing types remain in place. The need to
address the flaws in the housing system is increasingly critical as central cities have lost and continue to
lose residents to their flourishing outer suburbs.
Postwar suburban development was not the sole contributing factor to the decline of central
cities. A number of broad economic conditions (e.g. deindustrialisation, globalisation, uncoordinated
regional growth, etc.) were simultaneously amplifying the disinvestment in city centres. Interventionist
responses to urban decline were in full swing by the 1950s. Successive monikers have been attached to
these city improvement efforts: urban renewal, slum clearance, redevelopment, rehabilitation,
22 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme reurbanisation and revitalisation (Wolfe, 1994; Collin, 2003). Early urban renewal efforts were characterised by ham-fisted slum clearance plans and unpopular, classical modernist housing projects, but thankfully lessons have been learned and applied in subsequent approaches.
3.2. City-building
The idea of housing policy as a tool of city-building may seem abstract, but once it is understood, the connections become apparent. Fundamentally, housing policy represents the state’s response to the public’s need for shelter. More broadly, housing policy also embodies specific intentions that guide the process of housing production (i.e. where housing is built, its size, its composition, its form, etc.).
Conceivably, housing strategy instituted at the policy level, will eventually be reflected on the ground.
Housing policy, therefore, is a way of organising space and has city-building outcomes (Grant, 1997).
Bourne and Bunting (1993) note how housing production becomes “physically tied to land, to the local planning process, and to the availability and costs of services” at the local level1. They go on to emphasise the important economic role of housing, and how inseparable housing is from its context.
Place-dependence is something that makes housing unique among other goods; it is produced, bought and sold — where it will remain. Place-dependence also serves to amplify the pressures associated with supply and demand cycles that also vary from one urban area to the next. Housing experts (Bourne1981,
1992; Shlay 1985, 1987) have asserted that housing is an embedded good and that the attractiveness of surrounding dwellings and neighbourhood characteristics to a given household must be understood as a function of the milieu de vie (translated: living environment) as much as the structural or amenity qualities of the household’s own home.
1 Services include both hard services (water, roads, sewerage) and soft services (schools, recreational and community facilities). 23 Brendan Pinches
Apart from providing shelter and economic benefits, housing takes up a great deal of physical
space within cities and is a foundational building block in the social structure of our communities.
Houses serve to define both physical and social space. Introduced in 1929, Clarence Perry’s influential
concept of the “Neighbourhood Unit” was based on the population of a community required to support
one elementary school. Perry’s concept focused on the arrangement of housing relative to the school
and a few other public amenities, like parks and churches. The design of Perry’s ideal “neighbourhood”
featured an internal circulatory road network, while apartments, commercial and higher-capacity roads
were kept to the outside. The established acceptance of Perry’s model has eroded as socio-economic
changes have resulted in alternative models of residential development coming to the fore. As one
author notes:
Declining fiscal resources for municipal governments in low and moderate growth areas
jeopardise the dominance of public infrastructure as the principal mechanism for
structuring residential environments. (Grant 1997, 112)
24 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme
4. MONTRÉAL CONTEXT
Montréal has experienced its share of socio-economic change and has altered its policy approaches accordingly.
4.1. History
Montréal is Canada’s second largest city with 1,620,693 residents within its boroughs. The Island of
Montréal is part of a metropolitan area with a population of 3,635,571 (2006 Canada Census, CMA).
Chief among the other municipalities in this region are the adjacent ‘off-shore’ municipalities of Laval and Longueuil, along with the municipalities of the North and South shores.
Montréal is widely known for its dualities: its blend of European and North American qualities, a mix of old and new, and the continued co-existence of the French and English languages. The city is recognised as a metropolitan centre that owes its distinctive urban character to the legacy of its colonial settlement, by both the French and British. Traces of this heritage are still found in the city’s street grid and built form. While only a very small number of structures in Montréal date back to the days of New
France, a more lasting mark was left on the territory by the seigneurial system of New France. This method of land division was primarily designed to maximise equitable access to waterways and resulted in the creation of long, narrow lots. As property further inland was surveyed and subdivided, the resulting districts (or ‘côtes’) took their names from the major roads which connected them (Marsan,
1981). The present-day road network that interconnects the framework of historic côtes follows a gridiron order, in line with the lots drawn by the seigneural system. Through successive stages of subdivision, the long lots were transformed into the distinctive neighbourhoods with long residential blocks that Montréal is well known for today (Germain and Rose, 2000; Marsan, 1981).
25 Brendan Pinches
4.1.1. Residential character: the plex
Perhaps the most instantly identifiable characteristic of the Montréal urban fabric is the housing type
known as the ‘plex’. Although similar building types can be found throughout several North American
cities, especially in cities like New York, Boston and Chicago, it is the large amount of plex-dominated
neighbourhoods that have remained intact and are thriving in Montréal that make this kind of housing
so synonymous with the city. The plex is actually a broad category with sub-types such as maisonette,
duplex, triplex, quadruplex and so on (CMHC, 2007). Plexes are essentially stacked apartments, where
each unit runs the length of the structure and has openings (and often balconies) at the front and the
back. In most cases the main floor of
a plex is one large residential unit,
whereas the floorplans of the upper
levels are often divided into more
(usually two) individual suites. Each
suite has its own entrance, with
upper floor suites being accessed by
a stairway that is set apart from the
main floor suite (and may be either
internal or external to the structure).
Plexes were built to maximise lot Figure 1. Traditional and contemporary plex facades
usage, and as a result their front entrances are often very close to the sidewalk and street. The
successful adaptation of the plex type in Montréal has led to its perpetuation in the contemporary
context.
26 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme
Plexes offer structural advantages such as Brenefficient ventilation and the provision of natural light. They also represent a form of housing that has proven to be flexible enough to match the changing socio-economic realities of Montréal’s housing market through the years. During the nineteenth century and the first part of the twentieth, Montréal was a centre of industry and commerce, drawing large numbers of immigrants in successive waves. Plex housing also provided an essential supply of affordable rental housing to Montréal’s large population of working class citizens. The main floor of a plex was often occupied by the owner/landlord of the building, and the additional suites within the building were rented out, providing key sources of income for the owner. Rental tenure afforded by this unique built form supported Montréal’s very high rates of rentership.
4.1.2. Suburban competition
In the second half of the twentieth century Montréal experienced a series of economic setbacks ranging from widespread deindustrialisation and the decentralisation of the urban population to repeated bouts of political instability and the resulting corporate and residential exoduses. Today, Montréal is no longer a major hub of industrial activity, but it remains a popular destination for new immigrants and continues to be a city of renters. In general, the city’s supply of rental apartments is both adequate and moderately affordable. Unfortunately, this housing supply also represents a limitation to the growth of the city’s tax base, as privately owned homes represent a more profitable base of tax revenue than rental properties. In Montréal, when rental vacancy rates are low, rents increase to levels that are comparable to the mortgage payments made on an entry-level property.
As Montréal’s population declined, between the mid 1970s and the mid-1990s, City officials recognised that the number of single person households actually continued to increase, and that the 27 Brendan Pinches
trend of out-migration was most specifically linked to families with children (Ville de Montréal, 2008).
This group is a key demographic segment because it captures households during a “growth phase”,
wherein these households are most likely to add members and/or purchase a home. Montréal loses
these residents to the suburbs because its rental-focused housing stock does not match up well with the
newer, larger, more affordable homes and lower municipal taxes found in the suburbs (Aubin, 2008;
Rose, 2009). Affordable market housing with more than two bedrooms is in short supply on the island of
Montréal, and this places the City at a great competitive disadvantage. Inter-municipal competition for
residents and industry in the Montréal region is also heightened by the limited form of regional
governance in place within the territory. The Montréal region has no significant tax base or cost-sharing
agreement for regional infrastructure (ibid.). Canadian municipalities are chronically dependent on tax
revenues and Montréal suffers acutely due to its position within a highly fragmented metropolitan area.
4.1.3. The Montréal megacity
On January 1, 2002, the Parti Québécois government imposed a policy of enforced mergers across the
province. As a result, the 27 independent municipalities of the Island of Montréal were merged into one
megacity, with 27 boroughs. The provincial government also announced that the new City must develop
a Master Plan within three years of the merger. The Montréal Master Plan was introduced in 2004.
There was considerable public backlash against the forced merger and following the Liberal
Party’s victory in the 2003 provincial elections, citizens were given the opportunity to hold referendums
to demerge from the city. On January 1, 2006, 15 municipalities de-merged from Montréal. As a result of
its timing, the Master Plan covers the ‘united’ municipality of 2004 and its 27 boroughs, rather than the
19 Montréal boroughs of today.
28 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme
4.1.4. Revitalisation strategies
Successive Montréal administrations have responded to this context of “urban competitiveness” through revitalisation strategies focused on the Central City. Damaris Rose (ibid.) points out the significance of a 1979 change to a provincial law that handed municipalities greater control over the use of property tax revenue. In light of this increased control, and seeing that property tax is the most important revenue stream for the City, Rose posits that Montréal was thereby encouraged to take an entrepreneurial turn in its housing policy. Since 1979, there has been continuous administrative support for residential intensification within the city, with an emphasis on homeownership2. The municipality has made a priority of encouraging the development of new residential properties that are “value- added”. This refers to development that benefits members of society who experience an improved quality of life, while the municipality simultaneously generates a financial profit. Rose argues that the administration’s market focus has eclipsed the fiscally pragmatic desire to support core municipal services, and has instead extended into the realm of “new-build gentrification”, where the City uses
“housing policy tools to manipulate the size and composition of the resident population” (Rose, 2009:
2).
In the years between 1979-1987, the Housing division of the Commission d'initiative et de développement économique de Montréal (CIDEM, translated: Commission for Economic Initiatives and
Development) engaged in a programme known as Opération 20,000 logements (originally 10,000). The purpose of this programme was to build 20,000 new dwellings to entice young families to remain in the city, as opposed to buying a home in the neighbouring suburbs. To achieve this the City sold large amounts of banked land in the Rivière-des-Prairies, Pointe-aux-Trembles and St-Henri neighbourhoods
2 a more profitable base of property tax revenue than rental properties 29 Brendan Pinches
at below market cost with the understanding that the purchasing developers share the commitment to
realising the aims of the programme (Germain and Rose, 2000).
4.2. Recent municipal housing efforts
Prior to the introduction of the AH programme, a couple of other Municipal programmes attempted to
boost homeownership through conversion of the rental supply. The Crédit de taxe à la conversion was
introduced in 1993 with the goal of encouraging homeownership through the conversion of rental
buildings into condominiums in boroughs where conversions were authorised. There is a specific bylaw
regulating the conditions under which conversions are allowable. For example, one condition stipulates
that in order for conversion to be permitted, a borough’s vacancy rate among rental units must be
higher than three percent. After 2000, with lower vacancy rates throughout the city, far fewer buildings
were eligible for the conversion credit and thus the programme was terminated in 2005.
A similar programme, known as Domi-cible, provided financial support for purchases of plex
buildings (of 2-5 units). This grant was only applicable in targeted (Central) districts, and was meant to
encourage buyer to purchase plexes and become a live-in landlords.
Adopted in 2005, Montréal’s Inclusionary Housing Strategy aims to introduce diversity to the
housing options and social mix of large residential developments. The inclusion target of 30 percent
affordable units consists of 15 percent affordable ownership/rental housing units and 15 percent social
and community housing units. Developers are not legally required to meet these targets because
Montréal’s Inclusion Strategy is not legislated. Instead, targets are met voluntarily, through negotiations
between the Municipality and developers.
30 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme
Montréal’s 2008 introduction of a family policy, "Pour grandir à Montréal," and its companion
Family Action Plan 2008-2012 cast the municipality as a “City of Families”. The Action Plan promotes the quality of life enjoyed by families in the city and includes a number of initiatives that work towards improving it. Key among these initiatives is the Urban Housing for Families programme (translated from
Habitations urbaines pour familles: HUF). HUF is a financial assistance programme for developers of family residential units that meet the necessary criteria for design, layout, density and affordability. For example, dwelling units in proposed projects must be at least 102 metres squared in size and include at least 5 rooms, of which at least 3 are bedrooms. Eligible projects must also provide private outdoor space for all units, either in the form of balconies or space on the ground level. City administrators award funding to this supply-based enterprise based on the merits of proposed projects. Priority is given to projects showing commitment to sustainable development, universal accessibility, and building in walkable contexts. The purpose of HUF is to demonstrate and facilitate the development of quality of housing for families in denser urban areas.
Operation 15,000 Logements was the action plan for Montréal’s housing strategy from 2006-
2009. This plan expressed the municipal intent to make 10,000 improvements to the private affordable housing stock and to support the creation of 5,000 social and community units. The private component objectives were opertationalised through a variety of programmes, including those that subsidised both the renovation/conversion of residential properties and the construction of new affordable housing.
Accès Condos and the Access to Homeownership programme are two of the primary municipal programmes geared towards providing affordable homeownership.
Accès Condos is a programme administered by the Société d’habitation et de développement de
Montréal (SHDM). The SHDM is a para-public organisation that puts the City’s housing policies and objectives into practice through the development of municipal land and property management. SHDM 31 Brendan Pinches
works closely with another para-municipal organisation, the Office Municipal d’Habitation de Montréal
(OMHM), that manages many of the affordable housing units developed by the SHDM.
The Accès Condos programme facilitates the development and marketing of affordable condos
in Montréal. Condo units developed under the Accès Condos homeownership programme are eligible
for an SHDM purchase credit. A purchase credit requires that a $1,000 deposit is made in exchange for
SHDM advancing a 10percent downpayment on behalf of the credit purchaser. SHDM’s Accès Condos
developments have achieved a status based upon quality and affordability that is hard to equal, and
these projects have become popular applications of the AH programme as well.
32 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme
5. ACCESS TO HOMEOWNERSHIP: PROGRAMME HISTORY AND EVOLUTION
5.1. Introduction to the AH programme
The AH programme works on both the supply and demand sides. At the outset of the programme, builders did not see the city as a place to build units for first-time buyers. The programme favours new units because (a) the charter of the City of Montréal limits subsidy allocation to new first-time buyers and social housing; (b) ensuring an increasing number of housing starts and thus growing the City’s tax base makes good economic sense; and (c) on a more operational level, promotion of the AH programme is done by the developers, making its implementation (in terms of marketing and outreach) relatively easy and resource-effective.
Over the programme’s history the demand for the grant has been sustained as Montréal has seen a growth in demand for owner-occupied housing as rents have increased. At the same time, incomes have also risen, enabling more households to make the jump to homeownership, especially with low mortgage rates. Critics of the programme believe that it fosters gentrification and take issue with the City effectively subsidising the construction of new, privately owned housing.. The Municipal stance is that regardless of the status and source of buyers, the AH programme undeniably encourages the purchase of new housing — a transaction that strengthens the tax base of Montréal.
5.2. Tax credits3
In 1989, the first tax credit programme to encourage homeownership in Montréal was established, called Crédit-proprio. In the subsequent years, revised versions of the programme operated under
3 For details related to tax credit versions of the homeownership programme see Appendix A (page 114). 33 Brendan Pinches
different labels (i.e. Crédit de taxes and Congé de taxes). The first version of the municipal programme
set a price ceiling for admissible properties at $100,000. Homebuyers were entitled to a yearly property
tax credit of up to $1000 for the first five years of their tenure. The earliest edition of the programme
was open exclusively to first-time homebuyers.
Responding to the recession of the early 1990s, the Quebec provincial government introduced
the "Mon Taux, Mon Toit" programme to buyers of new homes, offering a three-year mortgage at a rate
of 8.5 percent (at a time when interest rates were considerably higher) or a cash grant equivalent to 4.5
percent of the purchase price of their home. In an effort to increase the impact of the municipal tax
credit programme in conjunction with this provincial programme, the City of Montréal allowed second-
time homebuyers to receive the tax credit and also raised the property price ceiling to $150,000.
The third generation of the tax credit programme, introduced in 1993, removed restrictions
concerning the maximum admissible price of a property purchase and the requirement for buyers to be
first or second-time buyers. This version of the programme placed a specific emphasis on supporting the
City’s mandate to repopulate the Central City by making a larger tax credit available to purchasers in the
Ville-Marie district, relative to the rest of the territory.
With an eye on capturing a larger share of the region’s housing starts, the City expanded the
programme more aggressively beyond Ville-Marie in 1995. The tax credit, which had amounted to a
$1000 per year reduction in property taxes per household, would be delivered as a tax holiday (to a limit
of $10,000) to all of Montréal. Buyers in Ville-Marie would be favoured by having a three-year window,
while the rest of the boroughs would have a tax holiday of two years.
In 1998, the provincial and municipal governments agreed to split the funding of the
programme. The tax credit would become a part of the PRQC - Programme de revitalisation des
quartiers centraux (Central neighbourhoods revitalisation programme) (Rose, 2009). Although the tax
34 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme credit totals were lowered, the programme was bolstered by the addition of a cash grant awarded to homebuyers4 in their first year of ownership. The grants were intended to help buyers defray the immediate transitional costs of ownership (i.e. legal fees, moving costs, etc.). After the first year of ownership, four years of tax credits were available to owners. The amount of tax credit available was once again more favourable to buyers in the Ville-Marie borough. This version of the tax programme ran until the end of 2002, when it was replaced by the next iteration of the programme.
5.3. Direct grants5
The first version of the Access to Homeownership (AH) Programme (Programme d’accession à la propriété) was introduced in 2003. Funding for the programme was the result of a partnership between the City and the Province. The City of Montréal made funds allocated to the Rénovation Québec programme available to the AH programme and also tapped into funding available through a provincial agency (Société d’habitation du Québec: SHQ). Subsidies were awarded in the form of a grant to first- time homebuyers or buyers who had not owned a property in Quebec in the last five years (see
Appendix B, page 115). Each grant was delivered as a lump sum, although reimbursement was required if the purchaser did not inhabit the purchased unit for at least three years after its purchase. Under the programme’s terms, the grant was valid towards the purchase of new6 housing or the purchase of an existing rental building in which the applicant lived.
Existing buildings had to meet specific conditions in order to qualify for programme funding.
Under these conditions, buildings were required to contain 2-5 housing units and were to be solely
4 See Appendix A (page 114) for amounts. 5 For details related to direct grant versions of the homeownership programme see Appendices B and C (pages 115 , 115). 6 The term ‘new’ property means that the unit has not been previously occupied. 35 Brendan Pinches
residential in use. The owner would be required to make the building his/her primary residence, and
would continue to rent the building’s remaining suites as revenue properties. Eligible buildings had to be
at least ten years old and were considered ineligible if they had been used for anything besides
residential purposes within the last ten years. The individual selling the building must not have resided
in the building within the last year, while the purchaser was required to have been a tenant of that
building for a minimum of the last six months prior to applying for the grant. The purchaser of an
existing building was not permitted to convert the property’s rental suites into condominiums within the
first three years of receiving a grant. This set of conditions was designed to promote ownership among
individuals who were prepared to be a resident and the landlord of the purchased building, rather than
an absentee landlord. In light of municipal efforts to maintain the quality of the existing housing stock, it
is believed that this type of tenure is desirable because a live-in landlord is more likely to be committed
to the maintenance and improvement of his/her property.
5.4. Recent changes7
New terms for the AH programme were introduced in April of 20108. The structure of the new
programme closely mirrors that of the last, with a few notable exceptions. Changes to the programme’s
property price limits and financial assistance amounts demonstrate a greater commitment to the
retention of families with children and households entering the family-formation phase.
The maximum eligible purchase prices have gone up across the board to reflect the general
price increases in the Montréal real estate market. Households with children are now eligible to spend
up to $295,000 on a new unit, which represents a $62,000 increase over the previous limit. There are
7 The details related to the 2010 version of the AH programme can be found in Appendix C (page 116). 8 Although the 2010 AH programme is not the version that is being examined in this report, the new changes made to the programme offer valuable insight vis-à-vis the observed results from the version under review (2003-2008).
36 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme actually two maximum eligible purchase prices for households with children. The lower of the two limits is $265,000, with no requirements for the unit to have a minimum amount of bedrooms or square footage. The higher limit of $295,000 is available for properties designated as “family housing units”.
The definition provided in the programme’s legal print describes this unit as “a new residential unit that includes at least five rooms, three of which are bedrooms, and has a minimum floor area of 96 m2
(1,033 ft2) as per the survey certificate” (Ville de Montréal, 2010).
A newly defined category for applicant households buying a new property is: “Household without children of two people buying together”. Under the previous version of the programme, two- person households (or couples) were under the same price limit and offered the same financial assistance as single person households. Differentiation between these two household types enables the programme to offer more opportunity (through a higher eligible purchase price) for two person households to purchase units with two bedrooms, as opposed to a one-bedroom. By accommodating the potential growth of these households programme administrators hope to support longer tenures, more stability and greater satisfaction among grant recipients.
Changes were made to the programme’s “lump sum” payment amounts. The lump sum offered to single person households has been lowered from $6,500 to $4,000, while households with children have seen their lump sum increase from $7,500 to $10,000 or $12,500, depending on the number of bedrooms in the unit purchased.
Homeowners tend to incur a number of start-up expenses in the process of buying, moving and establishing a new place of residence. One such hidden cost of homeownership is Quebec’s “welcome tax”. This real estate transfer tax was named after Michel Bienvenue9, the former finance minister who proposed it. The AH programme mitigates this expense to grant recipients by reimbursing them for
9 The name “Bienvenue” means “welcome” in English 37 Brendan Pinches
some or all of its cost10. The percentage of “welcome tax” that is reimbursed depends on the recipient’s
household type, while the unit’s purchase price of the unit determines the amount that is reimbursed.
This reimbursement can account for as much as $2,92511.
The part of the programme dealing with the purchase of existing properties was also changed
slightly. Interestingly, the price limit for existing properties was lowered and the requirement for a
purchaser to have been a tenant of that building was removed. The previous version of the programme
tightly constrained the purchase of existing properties with the requirement that the tenant-purchaser
had to be living in the apartment in the building he/she wanted to purchase. Given this constraint, very
few existing buildings, as opposed to new constructions, benefited from the programme. A senior
housing administrator with the City confirmed this by acknowledging that only 2 percent of AH grants
went towards existing properties between December 2003 and April 201012. The programme, as it
existed in those years, was heavily influenced by the rhetoric concerning gentrification, specifically the
conversion of rental housing into owner-occupied housing and the corresponding reduction in the
affordable rental housing stock as well as the impact of forced displacement on more vulnerable
tenants. The new programme targeting existing duplexes and triplexes does not have an occupancy
constraint prior to purchase. The price limit, which is below the median price of a Montréal plex,
essentially targets a price range that is affordable to first-time buyers13. It also limits the programme to
medium income households since upper-income households, even those who are first-time buyers,
generally purchase more expensive housing.
10 Single-person and two-person households qualify for a 40 percent reimbursement, while households with children receive a 100 percent reimbursement. 11 This amount represents the property transfer tax on a $295,000 property: the programme limit for a “family housing unit” 12 Daniel Legault (Conseil en aménagement, Direction de l'habitation, Service de la mise en valeur et du patrimoine), personal communication on April 21, 2010. 13 Martin Wexler (Chef de division, Direction de l'habitation, Service de la mise en valeur du territoire et du patrimoine) personal communication on May 13, 2010.
38 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme
Through the modifications made to the programme, the City continues to help all first-time buyers, regardless of whether they are households with children or not. The administration has, however, reinforced the emphasis on young families. The cash subsidy and the maximum unit price were increased for this reason and the full reimbursement of the real estate transfer tax was added to the “family package”.
Table 1. Changes and Consistencies of the AH Programme
Increase the number of homeowners in Montréal Consistent themes (objectives consistently Increase Montréal ’s percentage of regional housing starts carried forward over successive generations of the programme) Strengthen the tax base of the city
Mode of delivery of subsidy (i.e. tax credit or direct grant)
Restricted application to certain districts within the city
Eligibility criteria for applicants (i.e. exclusively first-time homebuyers, or not)
Programme changes Eligibility criteria for properties (i.e. type of unit, price ceiling, etc.) (features unique to specific versions of the programme) Variable funding levels based on household type
Encouragement of eco-friendly residences (Novo-climat, Leed certified)
Emphasis on homeownership for families with children
39 Brendan Pinches
6. ANALYSIS: OUTCOMES AND THEIR CONGRUENCY WITH THE MASTER PLAN
6.1 Outcomes
The Montréal Master Plan provides a framework for urban development within the city and, in a general
manner, describes what type of development is to occur and where it is to take place. Other municipal
plans, policies and programmes should align with the direction presented in the Master Plan. To
determine whether the “results” of the AH programme align with the general themes of the Master Plan
an analysis of data provided by the programme’s operator, the SMVTP, will examine the locations and
building types that AH grant recipients have opted to reside in. There is a need to map the locations of
grant recipient addresses across the Island of Montréal and to understand why the spatial distribution of
grant recipient addresses is what it is. There is also a need to identify the correlation between the spatial
distribution of AH grant recipients and factors highlighted in the Master Plan. Responding to these
questions will also provide clarity as to why some projects have attracted more such households than
others.
40 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme
6.1.1. General distribution of grant recipient properties
In previous versions of the AH programme, greater incentives were offered to homebuyers in certain
parts of the city relative to others, and some versions of the programme restricted the application of the
grant to specific areas of the city. The 2003-2009 version of the AH programme did not include elements
restricting or favouring the application of grants to any particular part of the city. Interestingly, due to
Figure 2. AH grant recipients and the Montreal metro and suburban train lines
the unique merger/demerger timeframe that the programme data records, grant recipients in the study
sample are found in parts of the Island of Montréal that are no longer part of the City of Montréal, such
as Cote Saint Luc. The geographic distribution of the recipient addresses is relatively widespread across
the Montréal territory; however, the main areas of concentration are limited to the central part of the 41 Brendan Pinches
Island. A small number of addresses are located in the far eastern portion of the city and even fewer in
the west.
In order to understand what factors have influenced the spatial distribution of AH grant
recipient units, we must recognise the important contributions of both private developers and public
authorities. The unique role of the SHDM... Approx this number of units are directly associated with the
SHDM. The primary market objective behind property development is to achieve a financial profit. As
explained earlier, this is a reason why affordable housing... Not all of the units purchased with
As can be seen in the mapped distribution of the grant locations, the grant recipient units tend to
congregate in the corridors running parallel to the metro lines (Figure 2) and are focused in and around
Montréal’s most densely populated areas (Figure 3).
Figure 3. AH grant recipients and Montreal population density
42 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme
Given Montréal’s historic pattern of growth in relation to commuter trains and streetcar lines, it is not surprising of to see grant recipient addresses gathered along the metro lines. Research has shown that higher order public transit14 infrastructure can play a significant role in the organisation of residential space, as well as the location of amenities and services in a city15. Accordingly, many of the areas that the metro lines (especially the orange and green lines) pass through in central Montréal are among the city’s most densely populated neighbourhoods. While some of the recipient clusters represent the further consolidation of neighbourhood fabric that is already quite dense, others highlight newly built residential development in areas with nearby metro access that were previously vacant or underdeveloped. This suggests that both homebuyers and developers recognise the value of proximity to the metro system and are strategically locating new residences in developable areas near to metro access.
6.1.2. Areas of concentration
Grant recipient addresses are found most prominently in four pockets of concentration which I will proceed to look at in greater detail. These pockets of concentration are:
the area near the southeast edge of Ville Marie and Mercier - Hochelaga-Maisonneuve
a linear band running from the northern part of Ville Marie to Le Plateau-Mont-Royal,
Rosemont - La Petite-Patrie, then through Villeray - Saint-Michel - Parc-Extension, and all the
way to Ahuntsic-Cartierville
the central portions of Le Sud-Ouest and Verdun;
north-central Rivière-des-Prairies - Pointe-aux-Trembles
14 Defintion: “Higher order transit is bus or light/heavy rail that operates in its own right-of-way or in a priority situation, and therefore moves more efficiently than the regular flow of traffic and can carry large numbers of people quickly and comfortably“, from Central Ontario Smart Growth Panel, Interim Advice on Unlocking Gridlock and Promoting Livable Communities in Central Ontario, August 2002: 14. 15 (Cervero and Duncan, 2002; Arrington, 2003) 43 Brendan Pinches
6.1.2.1. Ville-Marie and Mercier - Hochelaga-Maisonneuve
Montréal’s central business district (CBD) is found in the borough of Ville-Marie. What was once an
upscale Victorian neighbourhood composed of noble row-house construction and detached mansions at
the southern base of Mont-Royal (Germain and Rose, 2000) is now Montréal City Centre. Though a
handful of historic mansions and churches remain in the area, the CBD is dominated by high rise towers
that are home to office space, hotels and an increasing number of residences.
Several diverse and energetic ‘quartiers’ of the city are found in close proximity here:
Chinatown, the Gay Village, Old Montréal , the Old Port, Quartier International, Quartier Latin, to name
a few. Virtually all of the Ville-Marie residences purchased through the AH programme are located in the
southeast part of the borough, east of University Street. This area, known as the Centre-Sud, was once
home to industry and workers’ housing. By the middle part of the twentieth century, deindustrialisation
of the Centre-Sud had diminished local employment levels and the residential population also began to
wane. Numerous development projects have recently been constructed in this part of Ville-Marie, near
the borough of Mercier - Hochelaga-Maisonneuve. Overall, Ville-Marie holds 8.0 percent of the AH grant
recipients (Chart 1), making it the fifth most popular borough in the study16. The areas around Frontenac
Metro (on Rue Ontario Est), and especially areas to the south (Du Havre, Frontenac, Iberville, Parthenais,
De Lorimier), have seen extensive new development. Examples of revitalisation are also occurring in
areas along Ste-Catherine Street, where the Quartier des Spectacles continues to take shape around the
Place des Arts campus of buildings.
Grant recipients in Mercier - Hochelaga-Maisonneuve account for 19.6 percent of the total,
making it the most popular borough in the study sample (Chart 1). Mercier - Hochelaga-Maisonneuve
has experienced a great deal of new development in the past decade, bringing population growth to a
borough that had decreased by 48 percent from 1961 to 1996 (Bonneau, 2008). With an abundance of
16 Ville-Marie is tied with Ahuntsic-Cartierville for fifth most popular borough for AH grant recipients.
44 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme vacant land and buildings, the borough’s old industrial areas present attractive opportunities for redevelopment. Hochelaga and Maisonneuve were independent municipalities before they were annexed by Montréal in 1883 and 1918 respectively. These communities emerged as manufacturing districts and working class suburbs that were heavily linked with the adjacent railways and waterways.
Deindustrialisation in the 1960s and 1970s led to decline, although traces of the area’s prosperous past are still present in some of the borough’s splendid monumental architecture, like the Bain Maisonneuve and Marché Maisonneuve.
For years Hochelaga-Maisonneuve has battled a negative public image related to its poverty and crime rates. New developments in the southeast parts of Ville-Marie’s Centre-Sud and Hochelaga coincide with municipal efforts to encourage the revitalisation of these areas and have been welcomed by a majority of residents. The benefits of residential and commercial investment in this district are apparent to many, although some are concerned with increasing gentrification and exclusion in the community. On multiple occasions, high-profile condo projects have borne the brunt of those concerns in the form of vandalism and bomb threats17.
Well-organised citizen’s groups have made it their objective to play a role in the continued development of their beloved “HoMa,” to ensure that it serves not only the needs of the developers, but also the local residents. Warehouses and factories are prime targets for adaptive reuse and many in the area have been converted to residential and other community uses.
In some cases new construction presents a strong departure from the existing land use and urban form. One such cluster of addresses exists near the Radisson metro/AMT terminus. Although the new condo buildings are completely residential in nature, they do not blend seamlessly in with the surrounding fabric, nor are they disruptive of it. They represent a more intense land use with housing that is higher in density than what surrounds it. New developments also tend to offer features not found
17 Myles, 2004 45 Brendan Pinches
in the majority of the surrounding (older, existing) properties, such as underground parking, balconies,
rooftop terraces and other outdoor communal spaces.
In other instances, many projects
intentionally mirror the surrounding urban
fabric, as illustrated by the new condo
buildings on Ontario Est (Figure 4). This new
building maintains the historic streetscape, in
terms of roofline, set-back and the provision
of a continuous street wall. Including ground Figure 4. New development on Ontario Street
level commerce in new developments can be a challenge, but one that will change the way the street
feels and functions if it is not met.
6.1.2.2. Ville Marie, Le Plateau-Mont-Royal, Rosemont - La Petite-Patrie, Villeray - Saint-Michel - Parc-
Extension, and Ahuntsic-Cartierville
One of Montréal's most dense corridors is
the segment of the orange line metro
running from Ville Marie to Ahuntsic-
Cartierville. This is especially true for the
areas including Le Plateau-Mont-Royal,
Rosemont - La Petite-Patrie and Villeray -
Saint-Michel - Parc-Extension.
A concentration of AH grant Figure 5. Renovated building on Rene Levesque
recipients is present in an area extending from the neighbourhoods of the Gay Village and Quartier Latin
46 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme to the Plateau-Mont-Royal. This district is a popular area for students, where rental housing is highly sought-after due to its close proximity to the UQAM campus and nearby metro stations. This part of
Ville-Marie features neighbourhoods composed of plex/row housing dotted with large institutional buildings (i.e. university, Cegep, hospitals), small businesses and parks. Most of the area’s new residential units are loft-style apartments found within large-scale developments. Some of the properties purchased in this area are in renovated industrial buildings, like 65 Rene Levesque (Figure 5), which is home to ten AH grant recipients. Located on the edge of downtown, properties in this typically urban, higher-density context are characterised by notably smaller-sized lots, less big-box retail, a smaller amount of greenspace and fewer parking spots than is found in more ‘suburban’ settings.
Some of Montréal’s densest urban neighbourhoods can be found in Le Plateau - Mont Royal.
The area was fully built out by the 1930s and proceeded to declined in population during the years following the Great Depression. In the early 1980s the area began to be colonised by students, artists, and musicians18. This influx of new residents, in conjunction with municipal initiatives to repopulate the
Centre City, represented the early stages of the borough’s revitalisation (or gentrification).
The Plateau is home to many tightly woven neighbourhoods of condo-plex residential forms and fine-grained commercial streets featuring bars, cafes, and restaurants of every type. Many people consider this borough to hold Montréal’s most trendy and desirable neighbourhoods, and as a result affordability is not one of the area’s primary characteristics. While the Plateau was a preferred destination for buyers during previous versions of the homeownership programme, there are few grant recipients in the borough under the most recent terms (95 units or 2.6 percent of the total). The AH grant recipient units located in this borough are mainly found in the Mile End part of the borough, in new condo developments near Parc Wilfred Laurier. Developments in this area are utilising peripheral
18 Germain and Rose, 2000. 47 Brendan Pinches
lands abutting a CP rail corridor near the borough boundary with Rosemont - La Petite-Patrie. This site is
also close to Rosemont metro station.
Rosemont - La Petite-Patrie’s grant recipients are mainly found in the west (Saint-Édouard) and
south (Vieux Rosemont) portions of the borough. A multitude of commercial streets, filled with local
shops run through the western part of the borough. The main streets of the district, such as St. Denis,
are lined with long blocks of attached two and three storey plexes with brick façades and decorated with
linear staircases and large balconies. These are the poorer parts of the borough where the housing
stock, composed of small apartment buildings and plexes, is suffering from a lack of reinvestment. New
condos purchased with the AH grants represent a needed improvement in the built form in these
neighbourhoods.
The Villeray - Saint-Michel - Parc-Extension borough has the second highest distribution of AH
grant recipient addresses(9.8 percent of the total). Most of these addresses are located in the Parc
Extension part of the borough, near Parc metro station. Successive waves of immigrants have made
their homes in the neighbourhood of Parc Extension. Economic hardship is a common challenge facing
many new immigrants and this sector of the city is known for its poverty. These are also Montréal’s
most densely populated neighbourhoods and the blocks of large, closely clustered residential buildings
reflect this. Coarse-grained massing of the large buildings is common in the district, where Avenue du
Parc meets Rue Jean-Talon Ouest, and few of the newer residential buildings depart from this template.
Providing some relief from the built form is Parc Jarry, one of the few greenspaces in the immediate
area19.
Ahuntsic - Cartierville is located at the far north of the Island of Montréal, separated from Laval
by the Rivière des Prairies. Ahuntsic - Cartierville is the fifth most popular borough for grant recipients
19 Parc Jarry is in close proximity to Parc-Extension, but is actually located in the neighbouring Villeray district.
48 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme
(8.0 percent of the total). Groupings of grant recipient addresses can be found near Sauvé and Henri-
Bourassa metro stations. The north section of the borough is the oldest part, and was built around the area’s riverside mills. Garment manufacturing eventually replaced heavier industry, and the borough has been very involved in the Montréal 2025 strategic investment initiatives, in support of the fashion and garment industry.
The cottages, bungalows and small plexes found in Ahuntsic are of typical of Montréal stock.
The population density is lower here than it is in other parts of this concentrated pocket of AH grant recipient addresses. The area’s built form is a reason for its moderate population density. In the 1980's
"Operation 20,000 Logements" resulted in a great number of 2-story condo-plex homes in the south of
Ahuntsic (Domaine Saint-Sulpice), in fact doubling its population (Germain and Rose, 2000). Today, this area is the highest income district in the borough.
The Cartierville district (Bordeaux-Cartierville), in the northwest of the borough, is made up of a greater mix of larger residential buildings such as triplex, quadruplex and apartment towers, and has a higher residential density than Ahuntsic. Cartierville is home to the highest percentage of immigrants in the borough and has significant pockets of poverty.
Most of Ahuntsic-Cartierville’s AH recipient addresses are found in new condo buildings located in the Cartierville district, near the Henri-Bourassa, Sauve, and Cremazie metro stations. The Bois de
Boulogne commuter train station is also very near Henri-Bourassa Boulevard.
49 Brendan Pinches
Chart 1. Distribution of grant recipient addresses by borough
6.1.2.3. Le Sud-Ouest and Verdun
Le Sud-Ouest is well served by both the green and orange metro lines, and is the third most popular
borough for grant recipients (9.0 percent of the total), while Verdun is eleventh (3.5 percent of the
total). One ‘underdeveloped’ area where there is a cluster of grant recipient addresses is near the Place-
Saint-Henri metro station.
The built form of central Verdun and much of Le Sud-Ouest provide examples of the strong
industrial heritage found in Montréal’s historically working-class neighbourhoods, especially those in
close proximity to the St. Lawrence and Lachine Canal. This industrial heritage is made noticeable by the
50 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme presence of factories and warehouses, most of which have been decommissioned or repurposed. Fine examples of both white-collar and working-class housing can be found in these boroughs as they were home to a socio-economic mix from their early days (Marsan, 1981). Much of the housing stock is composed of long blocks of two or three-storey plexes, clad with brick and/or stone. Residences built in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when these areas were growing most rapidly, are mainly of plexes. In this sector, plexes are characterised by the various styles of balconies and outdoor staircases reaching up to the second-floor landing, from which the flats on the upper floors are accessed. The plex fabric allows for high, yet comfortable residential density and the close-knit streets in these boroughs are examples of this. In these neighbourhoods, plexes are built so close to the streets and sidewalks that it is rare to find front yards or mature trees planted along the street, like those that distinguish other boroughs, such as N.D.G.
Verdun is more densely populated than Le Sud-Ouest (6,802 people/km2 vs. 4,455 people/km2), and this difference is largely the result of Verdun having a greater amount of intact residential fabric.
Alternatively, Le Sud-Ouest has more large obsolete facilities and parcels of deindustrialised land still lying vacant. Former industrial areas provide the majority of potential land for new development in the
Sud-Ouest. In many cases deindustrialised complexes have been razed and further interventions (e.g., infrastructure improvements, soil decontamination) are required before new development can proceed.
6.1.2.4. Rivière des Prairies - Pointe-aux-Trembles
In the eastern part of the Island, Rivière des Prairies - Pointe-aux-Trembles (RDP-PAT) accounts for nine percent of the grant recipient addresses, making the borough the fourth most popular location. This borough experienced a building boom during the “Operation 10,000 logements” and has continued to be a source of new residential development, as one of the few remaining areas on the Island where new 51 Brendan Pinches
greenfield construction is possible. On average, the housing stock is much newer in RDP-PAT with 57.1
percent of residences having been built between 1981 and 2006, compared to 20.9 percent for
Montréal as a whole. Rates of homeownership are also very high in this borough at 61.2 percent,
compared to an average of 34.4 percent for Montréal as a whole. Homeownership rates continued to
grow in recent years increasing by 7.1 percent between 2001 and 2006, but at a slower rate compared
to the Montréal average increase of 10.7 percent. The residential character of the borough is something
that has been cultivated as a somewhat of a foil to comparable off-island suburban areas. RDP-PAT does
not have good transit connections to downtown and other parts of the Island.
6.1.2.5. Other areas
The West Island has very few AH grant recipients. The only notable West Island clusters are found in
Saint-Laurent, Lachine and Pierrefonds-Roxboro.
Saint-Laurent has six percent of the grant recipient addresses and has been a centre of
population growth on the Island in recent years. Many of the grant recipients in Saint-Laurent are
located around the Du Collège and Côte-Vertu metro stations.
Lachine and Pierrefonds-Roxboro have 2.8 and 2.4 percent shares of the grant recipient
addresses (and are the twelfth and thirteenth most popular boroughs), respectively. There are no
metro stations in either of these boroughs, leaving both to rely on the commuter trains and access to
the autoroutes. The majority of the recipient addresses in Lachine are not located near the train
stations, while at least some of those found in Pierrefonds-Roxboro are.
6.1.3. The composition of grant recipient household types
52 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme
Applicants to the AH programme identified themselves with a household type profile. The profile categories included: couple with children, couple with no children, single parent, single person, and other20.
Single person households represent 39.6 percent of
21 households in Montréal and in Chart 2. Distribution of grant recipients by household type recent years have seen the most growth amongst homeowners in Montréal. The AH programme statistics bear witness to this trend towards property ownership, as a disproportionately large amount of single-person households became grant recipients. Single person households are the largest household type among the grant recipients, accounting for 53 percent of the total number of grant holding households (or 1839 households).
The second-most common household type is couples without children. This group is comprises
24.9 percent of grant recipients (or 866 households), and is close to this demographic’s 20.3 percent share of Montréal households. While these households do not currently have children, and some may never intend to, this group is of particular interest to Montréal’s housing department because their presence in the city is growing (and will grow further with the addition of children) and they are favourably placed to purchase property (as potential two-income households.
20 A number of applicants chose to leave their household profile blank. 21 2006 Canada Census is the source of all demographic data related to the City of Montreal unless otherwise stated 53 Brendan Pinches
Households with children make up 33.2 percent of the households in Montréal. The percentage
of grant recipient households with children is significantly lower, representing only 20.7 percent of the
total (or 717 households). Within this group, 73.9 percent are couples with children, and the remaining
26.1 percent are single parents. These percentages are noticeably different than the Montréal averages
where couples with children represent 63.9 percent and single parent families are 36.1 percent . Single
parent households comprise 11.4 percent of Montréal households but only 5.4 percent of AH grant
recipients. The lower than proportional representation of single parent households among AH recipients
testifies to the financial obstacles this group faces (with higher dependent-to-worker ratios than other
household).
6.1.4. Concentration of grant recipient household types by borough
The demographic makeup of households and their geographic distribution carries a great deal of
importance to municipal planners and officials who seek to project the public’s future needs for services
and amenities. When deciding where to locate, proximity to public services and amenities is
fundamentally important. In this light, it is worthwhile examining where different household types are
located.
Among AH grant recipients, the percentage of single-person households is disproportionately
high (53.0 percent) when examined against the percentage of single-person households in the Montréal
(39.6 percent). In fact, there are no boroughs where the percentage of single-person grant recipient
households is below the municipal average. For interest’s sake, only the most acute examples will be
highlighted. Montréal boroughs where single-person households are found in the highest proportions
are: Plateau-Mont-Royal (79 percent), Ville-Marie (71 percent), Sud-Ouest (63 percent) and Rosemont–
La Petite-Patrie (60 percent).
54 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme
Couples without children represent 20.3 percent of Montréal households, and those that took part in the AH programme (24.9 percent) were found in the highest percentages in the following boroughs: Mercier–Hochelaga-Maisonneuve (36 percent), Rivière des Prairies - Pointe aux Trembles (31 percent), Verdun (28 percent) and Lachine (28 percent). Couples without children may represent a population in a transitional stage of life who may intend to live in their current dwelling as a couple, and then move on if they decide to have children. Alternatively, their home may represent the place where they intend to stay and raise their future family.
The percentage of couples with children taking part in the AH programme (15.3 percent) is below the proportion of Montréal households with children (21.8 percent). By extension, it is not surprising to find that most of the boroughs show a lower than proportional number of couples with children among their grant recipient households. There are only five boroughs where the percentage of grant recipient households with children is above (or even close to) the average for the general
Montréal population. These boroughs are: Côte des Neiges - Notre Dame de Grâce (CDN-NDG) (43 percent), Rivière des Prairies - Pointe aux Trembles (27 percent), Saint-Léonard (26 percent), Saint-
Laurent (25 percent) and Pierrefonds Roxboro (22 percent). Boroughs with the lowest percentage of recipient households with children are: Mercier–Hochelaga-Maisonneuve (13 percent), Sud-Ouest (13 percent), Ville-Marie (11 percent), and Plateau-Mont-Royal (8 percent).
For single-parent households, CDN/NDG (12 percent) is the most popular choice, although
Rivière des Prairies - Pointe aux Trembles (8 percent), Ahuntsic-Cartierville (7 percent), and Pierrefonds
Roxboro (7 percent) are also popular.
6.1.5. Building types of AH grant recipient units 55 Brendan Pinches
Figure 6. Building heights of grant recipient addresses
6.1.5.1. Small buildings and plexes
56 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme
Single-detached houses are notably absent from the study sample. Since single-detached housing is the most expensive type of housing, and because price is a limiting factor for eligibility in the AH programme, it makes sense that it is not represented.
Figure 6 shows the geographic distribution of grant recipient units based on the number of storeys in height that the building containing each unit has. The large majority (76.9 percent) of grant recipients live in buildings with less than five storeys. Within that sum, 9.5 percent live in two-storey buildings, 51.8 percent in three-storey buildings and 15.5 percent in four-storey buildings.
A very small amount (1.4 percent) of the properties between 1 and 4 storeys in height are semi- detached units, in the form of side-by-side duplexes sharing a party wall. This housing type was found exclusively in Rivière des Prairies - Pointe aux Trembles. The majority of properties between 1 and 4 storeys were found to be of either the plex type or small condo buildings (a.k.a. condo-plex). A small condo-plex is indistinguishable in appearance from a small apartment building. In many cities the conversion of apartments to condos is commonplace. In Montréal, the condo has proven to be a profitable investment and popular form of tenure, and is increasingly found across the Montréal territory. Condos buildings of 9 to 30
Figure 7. Typical new, three-story condo building units (Figure 7) have become the “face” of new residential development in Montréal.
As stated earlier, a plex is a small multi-family building (i.e. row house, walk-up condo, duplex, triplex, etc.) that usually contains between two and five housing units, each unit having direct access to the street. Plexes account for 38.5 percent of Montréal’s residential dwellings and many of the city’s traditional residential neighbourhoods are lined with two or three-storey plexes. In the study sample, 57 Brendan Pinches
plexes were found throughout the
Montréal area, in a wide variety of
shapes and forms. Newer examples
of plex construction tend to be
built in multiples or rows of
attached units (Figure 8).
Montréal’s older residential
streets, on the other hand, were Figure 8. Wilson Street in Lachine: dizzying repetition
built in a piece-meal manner, where the block was gradually built out and filled in, unit by unit.
Contemporary development practices occasionally result in the build-out of entire blocks of housing
with less diversity and more repetition than is commonly found on Montréal’s older, intact residential
streets.
The grant recipient study sample
includes a number of single-lot, infill plex
structures; these examples tend to be
overlooked because they are significantly
outnumbered by the amount of new condos
purchased purchased. These piecemeal
developments fill in the gaps or “missing Figure 9. Example of small-scale infill teeth” of a block. Nearly all of the infill
development in the study sample is found in Ville-Marie and Montréal’s other central areas: Le Plateau-
Mont-Royal, Rosemont - La Petite-Patrie, Mercier - Hochelaga-Maisonneuve (Figure 9).
58 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme
In general, the majority of AH recipients have purchased wood frame, condominium walk-ups, in
Central Montréal, mostly on the periphery of the downtown.
6.1.5.2. Large buildings
A significant number (23.1 percent) of grant recipients live in buildings that are taller than five storeys.
Given the composition of the built form in the downtown Montréal, it is not surprising to find 13.4 percent of Ville Marie grant recipients living in high-rise towers. What is surprising is the fact that three boroughs had larger shares of high-rise addresses than Ville-Marie: St. Laurent, St. Leonard (18.2 percent), Ahuntsic-Cartierville (15.4 percent) and Le Sud Ouest (13.9 percent). Significant proportions of high-rise addresses were also present in St. Laurent (11.0 percent) and CDN – NDG (8.2 percent). There is an explanation for the large percentages of high-rise addresses found in contexts where high-rise developments seem to be somewhat atypical of (e.g. CDN-NDG). The number of households involved in this study is small enough that one or two large condo projects with a significant amount of AH grant recipients is enough to give that borough a sizeable portion of the total.
6.1.5.3. Unit sizes
Some attention should be given to size of the units purchased with the assistance of the grant and the distribution of the units based on their size. The SMVTP data does not include the floor area or number of bedrooms in the units of the study sample. In this regard, certain conclusions must be drawn from other sources.
Although the exact percentage is unknown, the vast majority of AH grant recipient units were one-bedroom or two-bedroom units. The household type statistics of AH grant recipients tells us that
79.4 percent of recipient households did not have children and it is unlikely, for both pragmatic and financial reasons, that these households would purchase a three-bedroom unit. 59 Brendan Pinches
Housing officials have expressed concern that the current housing stock prevents young families
from establishing in the city. It is known that the AH programme was not as popular with households
with children as had been hoped for. Only one fifth of AH grant recipients were households with
children. Within the price limits of the AH programme, developers struggled to produce three-bedroom
units needed by some families. As mentioned earlier, revisions made to the 2010 version of the AH
programme have increased the price limit for households with children and introduced a higher price
limit for three-bedroom “family housing units”.
In terms of floor area size, it is safe to suppose that the more central the location, the smaller
the floor area, within a given type. In general, the AH recipients living in downtown, concrete frame
buildings have purchased very small units.
6.2. Congruency of AH programme outcomes with the Montréal master plan
The Master Plan shall become the municipal reference document for any action
pertaining to urban development within the city. (Montréal Summit, June 2002)
The creation of Montréal’s Master Plan satisfied the requirements of the provincial Act respecting Land
Use Planning and Development22. The Master Plan is Montréal’s official plan and as such establishes the
planning and development priorities of the City. A number of precursor events contributed to the
contents of the plan: the Montréal Summit in 2002; the Call for Ideas campaign (which ended in 2003);
and a process of public consultation that carried on until just prior to the approval of the Plan. With the
passing of by-law 04-047 on November 23, 2004, The Master Plan was approved by city council.
6.2.1. Planning approach
22 (R.S.Q., chapter A-19.1)
60 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme
In terms of content, the Master Plan deals with a large number of important urban issues, such as transportation, employment and environmental challenges. The focus of this analysis is on the content pertaining to housing, especially the construction of new affordable housing. The central theme of the
Master Plan is sustainable development, which it defines as,
An approach integrating environmental, social and economic dimensions in order to
meet current needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet
theirs. Sustainable development pursues the preservation of ecological integrity, social
equity and economic efficiency. (Ville de Montréal, 2004: Glossary)
This definition closely mirrors that of the oft-quoted Brundtland Commission (United Nations, 1987).
Although the Master Plan does not mention the phrase ‘smart growth’, the planning approach of the
City borrows many ideas from this urban planning model, such as promoting compact and transit- oriented forms of urban growth. The Master Plan sets out seven broad Goals for planning and development, which are then broken down into 19 Objectives and a series of more specific Actions. The
City and its partners commit to pursuing these Goals, Objectives and Actions through capital projects and programmes.
The Montréal Metropolitan Area is projected to add 150,000 households between 2004 and
2015 (Ville de Montréal, 2004). By international standards this growth pressure is quite modest; however, the City of Montréal will seek to incorporate a large portion of the incoming population to avoid urban sprawl in the region. The City established an Objective to “promote the construction of
60,000 to 75,000 housing units between 2004 and 2014” (Ville de Montréal, 2004). To realise this
Objective, the City’s Actions are not solely focused on the development of vacant land (of which there is enough to accommodate 55,000 new housing units), but will also involve the conversion of buildings and spaces currently used for other purposes. The City estimates that nearly 55,000 new dwellings could 61 Brendan Pinches
be realised through conversion alone. The conversion of non-residential buildings to high-density
residential developments in areas of the City already supplied with services and amenities represents a
cost-effective deployment of infrastructure (roads, utilities, etc.) and public services (maintenance,
ambulance, police, etc.).
Sustainable urban development is predicated on effecting consolidation or “renewal within the
city”23 . Consolidating land uses can assist in the processes of intensification and revitalisation. Vacant
and underutilised areas can be rationalised and reintegrated through renewal and new construction.
The relocation of certain activities may be required to facilitate the consolidation of land uses. For
example, if a largely obsolete industrial area transforms to sustain a residential component, that area’s
remaining industrial facilities may be relocated to a more suitable location. Consolidation of commercial,
industrial, residential and other areas where built form and land use patterns have changed over time is
envisioned in the Master Plan
The planning principles and priorities of the Master Plan provide the necessary criteria with
which to evaluate the location of AH grant recipient households. Within the scope of changes envisioned
by the Plan, intensification and revitalisation are two recurring concepts. These terms can be
interpretated quite broadly and have the potential to overlap, yet the Master Plan defines them
specifically enough to graphically identify lands to be developed more intensely and lands targeted for
revitalisation on maps.
Intensification involves developing land at a higher density than existed previously. Developing
land more intensely will increase the land’s population density as well as the diversity of compatible
activities it accommodates. Intensification has a positive impact on “the surrounding urban environment
and on the use of public transportation network”. They City recognises the need to intensify land use
near its primary transportation corridors. The Master Plan “recommends increasing the intensity and
23 Quote from “Letter from Robert Libman”, Montréal Master Plan, 2004.
62 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme diversity of urban activities, particularly in the vicinity of metro and commuter train stations and major public transportation corridors that offer potential consolidation due to the presence of vacant or underused land” (Ville de Montréal, 2004).
According to the Master Plan, to “revitalise” is to “improve the quality of life”. The Plan’s
Integrated Urban Revitalisation Strategy states that revitalisation requires taking action to affect the physical and build environment, specifically related to housing, community facilities and urban design.
The Strategy encourages the acquisition of land, presumable through the SHDM, for the construction of affordable and public housing. Areas were targeted for revitalisation based on information from the
2001 Canadian Census and an analysis of built environments throughout the city. It is noted in the
Strategy that revitalisation goes beyond physical factors, that socio-economic conditions must also be addressed.
63 Brendan Pinches
6.2.2. Intensification near transit infrastructure
Montréal’s transportation corridors are anchored by the metro, the suburban train network and city bus
routes. Increasing the residential density within walking distance of transit nodes and in transit corridors
encourages the use of public transit, supports enhanced service levels and enables residents to be less
reliant on personal automobile use. Transit access plays a structuring role in land development,
especially in regards to the location of affordable housing.
Figure 10. Grant recipient addresses near metro and suburban train lines
Figure 10 shows the 1,281 AH grant addresses that are within 500 metres24 of a metro or train
station. These addresses account for more than a third (35.1 percent) of all AH grant recipient
addresses. Within within this group, 92.0 percent of the addresses are closer to a metro station than a
24 The distance of 500 metres represents a reasonable walking distance.
64 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme
train station. Overall, 32.3 percent of AH grant recipient addresses are within walking distance of a
metro station, with only 5.7 percent of within 500 metres of a train station. Only 2.9 percent of
addresses in the study sample are within 500 metres of both a metro and train station.
In comparison with the entire land base of the City of Montreal, the land identified within 500
metres of the metro and train stations is proportionally very small. In light of this comparison, it is clear
that AH programme supports the City’s objective to develop land in proximity to transit stations and
corridors.
Figure 11. Grant recipient addresses near main roads
Intense development along the city’s main roads, which are also its major public transportation
corridors, is also supported in the Master Plan. Main roads provide an armature for the public transit 65 Brendan Pinches
network (i.e. the city bus service) and tend to have nearby access to necessary services and amenities.
Transit corridors without metro or train stations may lack points of focused intensification, but further
residential densification along main streets allows for improved transit service, and affords greater
opportunities for multi-modal transit (i.e. any combination of walking, biking, park-and-ride, etc.) as well
as investment in the shared public spaces along these routes (i.e. bikeways, street furniture, parks, etc.).
The orange markers in figure 11 represent AH grant holder addresses that are within 500 meters of a
main road. Nearly all (98.0 percent) of the addresses within the study sample are within walking
distance of a main road, which is not surprising given that the majority of grant recipients are located in
central parts of the city and given the city’s expansive road network.
Figure 12. Grant recipient addresses in areas where more intense land development is favoured
66 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme
Figure 1225 identifies areas within 500 metres of metro and commuter train stations (in orange) and public transportation corridors (in blue) with the potential to be developed more intensely. The red markers represent the locations of AH grant recipient addresses. Approximately 28 percent of all AH grant recipient addresses have been built in these areas with potential for more intense development. In other words, more than a quarter of the development associated with the AH programme has taken place on underused land and contributed to the intensification and the diversification of activities in the vicinity of specific metro and commuter train stations and certain public transportation corridors.
6.2.3. Revitalisation
Figure 13 identifies the City’s revitalisation areas (in orange), with red markers representing each AH grant recipient addresses. Approximately 77 percent of all AH grant recipient addresses fall within the revitalisation zones. It is important to remember that nearly all26 AH grants went towards the purchase of newly-built housing units. The fact that such a high percentage of these units were built in areas designated by the City for revitalisation begs the question, why are these projects located where they are? It is safe to say that the contribution of both public authorities and private developers matter in this respect.
25 The legend in Figure 11 includes the phrase “areas deemed for intensification”. This expression does not make sense and would better read “Land with the potential to be developed more intensely”. 26 98 percent of AH grants went toward the purchase of a new-built unit vs. 2 percent toward existing. 67 Brendan Pinches
Figure 13. Revitalization areas and grant recipient locations
6.3. Other factors influencing the spatial distribution of AH grant recipient addresses
The roles played by both public agencies and private developers actively influence the location of
market affordable housing in Montréal.
Public agencies influence the location of market affordable housing through a variety of funding
incentives27 to developers and in some cases by building housing themselves.
Site improvement costs often present significant barriers to the redevelopment of land,
especially on former industrial sites. The City has contributed funding for the demolition of outdated
structures and the remediation of sites with contaminated soil or groundwater. The Revi-Sols
programme is provincially funded and administered by the City of Montréal. Through this programme
the City has extended financial assistance to a variety of developments (residential, industrial,
27 The incentive programmes mentioned in this section are by no means an exhaustive list.
68 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme commercial, institutional and mixed use), “regardless of the nature or source of the contamination, the typeof project envisioned or the type of landowner (private or public sector)” (CMHC, 2003). The assistance of government funding for site improvements was required to realise several of the projects highlighted in the following chapter.
The most significant example of public sector involvement is that of the SHDM. The SHDM is a non- profit, para-public organisation real-estate development organisation. SHDM’s close association with the
City’s Administration is reflected in its mission,
“to participate in putting into practice the policies and objectives of the City of Montreal
by helping develop its territory and increase the value of its real estate through the
completion of integrated residential projects that have a ripple effect and promote
financial independence.” (SHDM, 2010)
The SHDM acquires and manages land and buildings on behalf of the City of Montreal. From its property portfolio SHDM develops certain projects independently or in association with private or public organisations.
At total of 492 AH grant recipient units (13.5 percent of the total) are found in 11 SHDM-partnered projects. All of the AH grant recipient units in SHDM projects were located in areas targeted for revitalisation. The purchase of a unit in a SHDM project has the added benefit of being eligible for the
Access Condo programme.
The SHDM also had a hand in other developments related to this study, related to its role in the management and sale of municipal lands. In these cases SHDM may choose a suitable developer based on a bidding process. The purpose behind SHDM’s projects is to encourage other developers to invest in 69 Brendan Pinches
these areas, and in time bring value to the market. Within the AH grant recipient sample, there is
evidence of privately-funded projects following the lead of successful, publicly-funded projects.
Private developers benefit from opportunities to partner with the SHDM. After all, the SHDM
guarantees the sale of every unit in the projects it promotes. Whether involved in a public-private
partnership or promoting an exclusively private project, the goal of private sector development is to
make a return on investment. Even when developers are producing market affordable units, they are
still in business to make a profit. The shared opinion among property developers and housing
administrators is that the AH programme’s price limits have the effect of restricting the development of
programme-eligible units to particular parts of the city. Areas in the city where land prices are low
enough for developers to make a return on these projects evidently correspond with the revitalisation
areas in the Master Plan.
Besides low land prices, Montreal property developers evaluate the potential of a prospective
project based on the location of the site and its access to transit and other amenities. Sam Scalia, the
President of Samcon, believes that Hochelaga-Maisonneuve and the Sud-Ouest are the most attractive
boroughs for redevelopment because they are near downtown and have good access to public transit.
Samcon is responsible for number of projects in these boroughs in recent years. Mr. Scalia affirms that
“the more you build, the popular the sector becomes” (translated from Bonneau, 2009). Mr. Scalia also
recommends the Sud-Ouest, especially the Pointe-Saint-Charles nieghbourhood, as an attractive area
for future projects. Jacques Vincent, Co-chair of Prevel, also refers to the Sud-Ouest, namely Griffintown
and Saint-Henri, as the most inviting location for investment (Bonneau, 2009). Both men agree that,
while land prices in the borough have increased, there are still bargains to be found.
A final factor that influences where AH grant recipient addresses have been built is Montréal’s
Inclusionary Housing Strategy. This Strategy (mentioned in an earlier chapter) compels developers to
70 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme include affordable units in their large-scale projects. Due to the voluntary nature of the Strategy, developers proceed as they see fit. The developer is free to decide where the project takes place, what it will look like and how many units it will include. AH grant recipient units created through the
Inclusionary Housing Strategy are found in the projects highlighted in the following chapter.
71 Brendan Pinches
7. EVALUATION
The fact that the AH programme predates the Master Plan should not be disregarded. The AH
programme has been renewed and revised since the adoption of the Master Plan, providing
administrators with an opportunity to ensure its congruence with the Plan. It is, after all, necessary for
all municipal programmes to align with the planning and development directives of the Master Plan. As
mentioned previously, Montréal’s approach to planning and development has been defined and
synthesised into a set of Goals, Objectives and Actions. The results of the AH programme should
correspond with, rather than contradict these aims. The Goals, Objectives and Actions contained in the
Master Plan will be used a means of evaluating the results of the AH programme. Each of the Plan’s
seven Goals has Objectives and Actions relevant to residential development; they are listed below28.
Each Action is associated with a project that is home to at least one AH grant recipient (Table 2). These
projects illustrate how the AH programme indirectly contributes to the implementation of the Master
Plan Actions.
Some of the projects discussed below could have been cited to support multiple Objectives of
the Master Plan, yet a unique project is described under each goal to reflect the wide range of contexts
where Access to Homeownership grant recipients have purchased homes.
28 For entire synthesis of Goals and Objectives refer to Appendices D and E (pages 102, 103).
72 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme
Table 2. Master Plan initiatives supported by AH grant recipients
Goal Objective Action Example Project 1. High-quality, 1. Improve the quality of 1.1 Ensure proper General description diversified and existing living maintenance of complete living environments residential buildings environments and the adaptation of the housing stock 1.2 Design public and NOVO private green spaces that enrich living environments 1.3 Promote the Château Dupuis consolidation of the City’s most dynamic commercial streets, strips and centres 2. Promote the 2.1 2.1 Stimulate Les Cours Lafontaine construction of 60,000 housing construction to 75,000 housing units on suitable vacant between 2004 – 2014 land 2.2 2.2 Support the Les Condos de Gare conversion to residential purposes of areas and buildings now fulfilling other roles 2. Structuring, 3. Consolidate and 3.2 Promote urban Côté Ouest efficient develop Montreal’s development that transportation territory in relation to favours the use of networks fully existing planned public integrated into transportation transportation the urban fabric networks 3. A prestigious, 6. Increase the Centre’s 6.2 Consolidate the McGill Ouest convivial and vitality residential function inhabited Centre in the Centre 6.3 Foster the Lowney Lofts fulfillment of the Centre’s residential function
7. Strengthen the 7.1 Ensure high-quality Quai de la commune Centre’s coherence architecture and and overall urban design in the Centre character 7.2 Develop the Centre’s Square Cartier unbuilt lots 73 Brendan Pinches
4. Dynamic, 9. Diversify and reinforce 9.2 Convert, to a mixed- Angus Shops accessible and activities at the use function, diversified Centre’s periphery in changing industrial employment order to support the sites that could be areas more intensive use of integrated into the existing infrastructure residential fabric 5. High-quality 12. Promote quality 12.1 Promote quality Imperial Lofts architecture and architecture and architecture that is urban consolidate the built ecologically sound landscapes environment in and respectful of harmony with the Montréal’s character surrounding character
13. Upgrade the public 13.1 Enhance the quality Place Simon-Valois realm through of the public realm coherent design of streets and other public spaces
6. An enhanced 15. Preserve and enhance 15.2 Protect heritage La Biscuiterie built, the built and buildings archaeological archaeological heritage and natural heritage
7. A healthy 17. Ensure the optimal 17.5 Pursue the Le Quai des éclusiers environment management of rehabilitation of resources in an urban contaminated sites context with government funding 17.6 Give priority to rehabilitating contaminated sites in the vicinity of certain metro and commuter train stations, as well as in areas to be transformed
74 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme
Action 1.1. Ensure proper maintenance of residential buildings and the adaptation of the housing stock
When a renter purchases a small rental building, the transaction meets the dual objectives of a tenant becoming a homeowner, without displacing another individual or reducing the amount of rental units available. Resident landlords have an established history in the city and have set a precedent that the
Municipality looks upon favourable. They are believed to take more personal pride in the buildings they call home, and contribute more actively to the maintenance and renovation of their property (which theoretically has knock-on effects throughout the neighbourhood). Ownership is also associated with the personalisation of one’s property, which can contributes to a more active and vibrant street life29.
As mentioned earlier, existing buildings account for only two percent of the AH grants that have been distributed by the City. There are multiple reasons for this, the main one being the volume of new condo units sold vastly outnumbers the quantity of plex buildings that been purchased with the support of the AH programme. The conditions under which an individual could purchase an existing building limited the pool of potential buyers. Additionally, purchasing an entire plex is generally a more expensive proposition than buying a condo and is beyond the means of most first-time homebuyers.
Nonetheless, existing properties are an important part of the City’s strategy to “ensure proper maintenance of residential buildings and the adaptation of the housing stock”, a concept at the core of the municipal desire to maintain a high quality of life in established living environments. The intent is not for all new homeowners to buy a condo, but to offer a diverse selection of housing options.
The purchase of existing buildings with AH funding does not contribute to the same sort of city- building effect that the purchase of new units does; however, the fact that existing properties purchased with the assistance of an AH grant do not stand out is potentially a positive. This is exactly the type of subtle reinvestment that is absent in the worst cases of gentrification. The adaptation of the housing
29 Germain and Rose, 2000. 75 Brendan Pinches
stock through the purchase of existing rental buildings contributes to homeownership (without
displacing anyone for three years) and theoretically promotes the reinvestment and maintenance of the
existing housing stock.
Action 1.2 Design public and private green spaces that enrich living environments
The Master Plan notes that the quality of life for residents is influenced by environments other than
their primary residences. Parks and public spaces are essential parts of urban life that allow residents to
experience the outdoors. Well-designed amenities can have a structuring role in living environments.
Project: NOVO
Developer: Conceptions Rachel-Julien
Borough: Mercier – Hochelaga-
Maisonneuve
Year of completion: 2006
In 2004, the City held a design
competition to generate
proposals for a private condo
development with a focus on
affordability. The abandoned Figure 14. NOVO's linear park and adjacent laneway , next to a warehouse.
Lavo factory would be the site for a residential project. City officials had pushed for the relocation of the
factory as it represented a non-conforming and dangerous land use in the neighbourhood. The factory
occupied a large site east of downtown Montréal, in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, south of Ontario Street.
The winning team of architects, Menkès Shooner Dagenais LeTourneux (MSDL) would have a blank slate
76 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme to work from after the municipal and provincial governments demolished the old factory, decontaminated the soil and removed rail tracks that ran through the site. A local development company, Conceptions Rachel-Julien, purchased the land from the City at half of its market value, and the competition winners were hired to ensure that the development proceeded.
The project involved the construction of three buildings, with a total of 93 condominiums.
Nearly three quarters of the condo units (68 units or 72 percent of the total) were priced as
“affordable”, meaning they qualified for the AH subsidy. Of these 68 units, there are 34 one-bedroom and 34 two-bedroom units. The project’s remaining 25 units are three-bedroom units that were priced at the full market rate. AH grant holders own 52 of the 68 affordable units in the NOVO project.
One of the most successful elements of the NOVO development project is the incorporation of public and private green spaces, which certainly enrich the living environment of the surrounding area.
Landscaped inner (back) courtyards provide semi-private garden spaces that are, in turn, connected to outer (front) courtyards.
The site adjacent to NOVO was developed into non-profit housing by a community group. The two developments are in close proximity and have common courtyard spaces. Both buildings are adjacent to bike and footpaths that pass through a tree-lined linear park built on the old rail corridor.
The greenspace functions as both as a green link through the neighbourhood and a buffer. The linear park leads pedestrians and cyclists through the development, across Ontario street, to a bustling new public square, Place Simon-Valois.
From a design perspective, the spaces have been thoughtfully oriented to take advantage of lines of sight (to the Olympic Stadium) and the spatial limitations of the development’s parcel of land
(the linear park on the Southern edge of the sight runs along a ruelle separating it from the adjacent warehouse). 77 Brendan Pinches
Action 1.3 Promote the consolidation of the City’s most dynamic commercial streets, strips and
centres
Only 5.1 percent of grant holders have a retail component within their building. The presence of small-
scale, local businesses has been something that Montréal has made efforts to maintain in the face of
increasing competition from large retailers and emerging shopping districts. However, both the
Municipality and developers understand that not all new main street residential buildings have the
capacity to support a commercial/retail element. In fact, the scarcity of new mixed use
(residential/retail) developments makes the examples that have emerged all the more significant.
Project: Château Dupuis
Developer: Belcourt Properties Inc.
Borough: Côte-des-Neiges—Notre-Dame-de-Grâce
Year of completion: 2008
Château Dupuis is a condo development in the heart of Côte-des-Neiges that includes ground floor retail
beneath 5 floors of residential units. Built in 2008, it mirrors the surrounding mixed-use nature of the
buildings on the block. The neighbouring buildings, most of which were built before the 1950s, have
street level commercial outlets (or ½ basement commercial elements) with 2 or 3 floors of residential
units above. The inclusion of retail at the base of new developments provides an element of continuity
at the street level and businesses along Côte-des-Neiges continue to play an important role in the local
economy.
78 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme
Château Dupuis is home to sixty units of housing, while the three older buildings across the street are home to total of 24 units on approximately the same footprint. The commercial element of the Château Dupuis project makes a positive contribution to the street life of
Côte-des-Neiges in the form of terraces which make the street a more vibrant and pleasant place to be. This building was built with high-end finishes and targeted
towards the luxury end of the market. As a Figure 15. Terrace on Cote-des-Neiges result there are only two AH grant holders at this address.
Action 2.1 Stimulate housing construction on suitable vacant land
A consistent theme within the Master Plan is the desire to consolidate land use to create a more compact city. At the same time, Municipal officials often face pressure from various types of community or special interest groups to influence or curtail development plans for vacant or underutilised areas.
The City’s aim to promote the consolidation of development within its territory will require a major effort and the balancing of social and economic considerations.
Project: Les Cours Lafontaine
Developer: Groupe Axxco Inc.
Borough: Mercier-Hochelaga-Maisonneuve
Year of completion: 2007
79 Brendan Pinches
Les Cours Lafontaine is a large scale residential community located between Rue Sherbrooke Est and
Rue Hochelaga in the borough of Mercier-Hochelaga-Maisonneuve. The 25 hectare development
occupies a site that was formerly part of the Louis-H. Lafontaine Hospital campus. This tract of land
appealed to developers due to its closes to Radisson metro station, highway 25 and nearby retail
outlets. The fact that this centrally-located property was not contaminated made it even more valuable.
In 1997, Groupe Axxco purchased the land and would proceed to act as the developer and project
builder for more than 1500 units of housing
(the project is ongoing at the time of writing).
This project was proposed before the
introduction of Montréal’s Inclusionary
Housing Strategy (2005) and it serves as an
important example of how much progress Figure 16. Part of Axxco's large-scale infill development Montréal has made in this regard. Community
members and local officials were very concerned that a project of this magnitude could go forward
without acknowledging the local need for affordable housing A prolonged period of negotiation was
required to convince Groupe Axxco to set affordability targets and include social housing components in
its project. Despite the fact that the developer bought the land from a public institution, there was
nothing legally binding the developer to make concessions regarding the inclusion of non-market
housing. The Ministère de la Santé et des Services Sociaux (MSSS) had not donated the land, or sold it at
below market value with an attached agreement or clause to fulfill such a commitment. The site was
subject to a Special Planning Programme (SPP) because it proposed the rezoning of the property,
changing it from institutional use to residential use. The great amount of public infrastructure
investment needed to provide sewerage, roads and sidewalks was another aspect of the proposal
evaluated by the City. The SPP process led to the builder and the City reaching an agreement on the
80 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme incorporation 185 units of public housing within the project. The social and community housing is split between 142 units for seniors and 40 units for low-income families. In addition, the assistance of the AH programme enabled 149 households to purchase properties in this community, comprised of semi- detached, townhouse and condominium units.
While projects like Les Cours Lafontaine, represent massive contributions towards the City’s construction goals, it is also encouraging smaller scale reconstruction efforts and these too are being supported by AH grants. Numerous infill projects have patched up the ‘missing teeth’ in the residential fabric.
Action 2.2 Support the conversion to residential purposes of areas and buildings now fulfilling other roles
A variety of factors can limit or discourage the conversion of buildings or land to residential purposes, such as contamination and zoning or other regulatory restrictions. The Master Plan makes clear that the
City will support residential conversion in instances where reasonable benefits can be expected. The four main types of buildings and areas listed in the Master Plan are: industrial areas, retail areas, large institutional properties and non-residential buildings.
Industrial areas in Montréal tend to reflect the scale of an earlier age of industry, in that they are often oversized. Areas such as rail corridors are found even in central parts of the city and hold enormous residential and commercial development potential. Unfortunately, many of the former industrial sites in Montréal are contaminated to the extent that the remediation can cost more than the site is worth. In these cases, access to specific government funding for “brownfield” remediation may be a possibility. 81 Brendan Pinches
Residential retail patterns have changed with the emergence of shopping malls, big box and
lifestyle shopping centres, and specialised shopping districts, like the Underground City. Evolving
consumer preferences shape the spaces of the city. This trend is noticeable in the decline of small-scale,
local retail on traditional main streets and the failings of dated suburban malls. These sites are often
called “greyfields” and may be attractive redevelopment opportunities because they do not have the
clean-up costs associated with brownfields.
Montréal is home to many institutional properties, especially religious institutions, some of
which are spatially organised as campuses where a cluster of buildings are arranged on a large piece of
property. Today, these properties represent ideal opportunities for subdivision and more intense use.
Many of the areas in Montréal that are targeted for revitalisation are composed of outmoded
and vacant non-residential buildings that could be converted into housing. Redeveloped industrial
buildings have become quite popular, yet residential conversions require a certain level of integration
within a wider context of services and amenities, like schools, shops and transit. With a limited amount
of developable open space in the Montréal territory, the Master Plan suggests that the conversion of
buildings to residential use can continue to have a central role in the densification of the city.
Project: Les Condos de Gare
Developer: Conceptions Rachel Julien Inc.
Borough: Villeray - Saint-Michel - Parc-Extension
Year of completion: 2006
In 2003, Montréal development company,
Conceptions Rachel-Julien Inc., proposed a
Figure 17. An example of adaptive reuse in Parc-Extension
82 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme development called Les Condos de la Gare, near Parc metro and train station. The proposal included plans for three residential projects on the east side of rue Hutchison, between avenue Beaumont and rue Jean-Talon Ouest. The developer proposed to convert two industrial structures (7060 and 7080
Hutchison) into residential condominiums and build a new structure on an adjacent lot (7040 Hutchison) that was used as an alley and parking area. The new building would house 60 dwellings for independent seniors on seven floors. The structures at 7060 and 7080 Hutchison were built in the late 1940s as textile manufacturing facilities and were to be recycled to comprise 80 condo units over 5 floors and 95 condos over 6 floors, respectively. Both buildings would incorporate underground parking.
Though there was little public opposition to this proposal, but because the developer’s plans were not in alignment with the Master Plan’s density and land use designations as well as the borough’s zoning by-laws, they were required to apply for a rezoning application and request that the Master Plan be amended.
The site of the two existing buildings was zoned “light industrial, retail and wholesale businesses”, thus residential use was prohibited. The seniors’ building proposed for the vacant lot, was to be seven stories tall, far above the 3 storey maximum allowed under the existing zoning bylaw. To make an amendment to the Master Plan, public notice must be given of the proposed change, and a public consultation must be held, after which the Office de consultation publique de Montréal (Montreal
Public Consultation Office: OCPM) giving its recommendation to City council whether the modification should be made. If the Master Plan is amended, the borough council is obliged to approve the zoning change.
The OCPM investigated citizen concerns and received the advice of professional consultants before recommending that the Master Plan be changed to allow this development. The rationale for this decision took many factors into account, but focused on the proposal’s potential to intensify the residential use of the land, while relocating the current industrial enterprises to a more suitable context. 83 Brendan Pinches
The OCPM report stated that, since the two buildings did not meet the contemporary standards for
industrial facilities and lacked the sufficient potential to be transformed to suit other industrial or
commercial purposes, zoning and density changes would be appropriate. At the time of consultation,
the two buildings held a combined 26 businesses with 335 employees, and the OCPM report indicated
that tenants occupying the facilities would benefit from relocating to the traditional textile
manufacturing areas of the city. Finally, because residential use is dominant in the contiguous area to
the west, it was accepted that these buildings used for light industrial purposes would be seamlessly
absorbed into the residential fabric. Once the Master Plan was modified, construction began and by
2006 new residents moved in. With the assistance of the AH programme, 63 households purchased a
unit in 7060 Hutchison, while 16 did likewise at 7080 Hutchison.
Action 3.2 Promote urban development that favours the use of public transportation
The Master Plan highlights certain areas for detailed planning. This component is known as the Special
Planning Program (SPP). The SPP may be required in areas where the planning process is complicated by
conservation issues, the vast size of a property in need of redevelopment, or the strong development
potential of a property in close proximity to a metro station. Traffic congestion has become a part of
everyday life for many Montréalers. In order to reduce automobile use, the City’s future urban
development must promote the use of
public transit.
Project: Côté Ouest
Developer(s): Devmont, SHDM
Borough: Cote-des-Neiges - Notre-Dame-
de-Grace Figure 18. SHDM's first development in CDN-NDG
84 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme
Date of completion: 2008
A block comprised mainly of street front parking lots and garages may seem like an odd location for a new transit-oriented development (TOD), but that is exactly what is found at 4950 Rue de la Savane in
Cote-des-Neiges - Notre-Dame-de-Grace (CDN-NDG). Côté Ouest is on the edge of the detailed planning area for Decarie /Cavendish /Jean-Talon Ouest, an area immediately east of the Decarie (Highway 15), between Rue Jean-Talon and Highway 40. The City and the borough share a desire to see this district revitalised through developments that not only add affordable housing, but do so in a transit-oriented way. An extreme transformation has been envisioned for the street where Côté Ouest now stands, partially due to the disjointed nature of the surrounding fabric, composed mainly of aged light industrial facilities, and in respect of the site’s development potential given its close proximity to both the de la
Savane and Namur30 metro stations.
Before the construction of Côté Ouest could take place, the developer’s rezoning application had to be approved, a public consultation was required, and a vacant warehouse on the property was to be demolished. The detailed planning process resulted in the adoption of a development plan
(Programme particulier d’urbanisme: PPU) by the borough council. Plans to raise the number of residents in the area from approximately 1500 to 6000 over a fifteen year horizon were complemented by zoning amendments that increased the allowed building heights. Côté Ouest was the first physical embodiment of this vision, and was built to the full height allowance. Côté Ouest was the result of a co- development partnership between a private developer (Devmont Inc.) and the SHDM. Completed in
2008, this 8-storey building houses 142 condos and offers the choice of 1, 2 or 3 bedroom units.
Purchasers were also able to take part in the Accès Condo programme and these units proved to be very
30 Namur metro station is also the site of a proposed commuter train station). 85 Brendan Pinches
popular with AH grant recipients, with 69 households choosing this location. Developers kept the price
per square foot below $200, a threshold that the SHDM considers affordable.
Action 6.2 Consolidate the residential function in the Centre
The Master Plan identifies several areas in the City Centre where residential or mixed-use development
would contribute to the consolidation of the urban fabric. The Faubourg des Récollets is one of the areas
mentioned. Not too long ago the Faubourg-des-Récollets was considered an undesirable place to live
and did not appeal to property developers. What is basically an extension of the Old Port, with the
Bonaventure to the west and the Lachine Canal to the south, the Faubourg-des-Récollets had been
ravaged by the pattern of deindustrialisation familiar to other parts of the city that were economically
linked to the Lachine Canal. The closure of the Canal saw the district regress to become a milieu of
vacant lots, empty garages and warehouses and surface parking areas. In the late 1990s, the
establishment of the Cité du Multimedia was a public sector initiative to attract high-tech firms to the
district west of Old Montréal. This revitalisation effort began with the relocation of numerous jobs to
the district. Employers were lured to the district with the offer of tax credits offered by the provincial
government. As Cité du Multimédia’s potential became apparent, the area saw a rise in residential
development of its abandoned buildings and vacant spaces.
Project: McGill Ouest
Developer: Urban Capital
Borough: Ville-Marie
Date of completion: 2006
86 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme
McGill Ouest was not one the first residential projects in the Récollets neighbourhood, but it is representative of the current state of residential consolidation in the City Centre. The residential function of the area has been consistently expanding for the past decade. Since 1996, the population of this area has tripled
(Société du Havre de Montréal, 2008), a trend owing to earlier Municipal strategies to repopulate the City Centre.
Property prices in the Faubourg des Récollets are more expensive than the Montréal average. Homeowners are an established majority here, more so than in other parts of
Ville-Marie. Figure 19. McGill Ouest: high-priced, small footprint
McGill Ouest is an award winning condo project that was built upon a surface parking lot on the eastern edge of the Faubourg des Récollets. Located to the east of the Vieux Port, McGill Ouest is not only an example of the consolidation of the Centre’s residential function, it also typifies the unit size and target market of downtown condo developments in Montréal. McGill Ouest is a concrete frame, ten- storey building with 244 units of housing, 70 percent of which are very small31, inspiring some to dub them “micro-lofts” (Diotte, 2005). Some of these ultra-compact units meet the AH programme’s affordability targets set by sacrificing square footage. The price per square foot is much higher here than in comparable projects outside of the City Centre.
McGill Ouest affirms a trend, identified by senior housing officials with the City, towards very small units in the City Centre and a set of identifiable demographic realities associated with this trend.
The target market for this project is young professionals and couples without children. Taking into account both the higher cost of land in Centre, and the fact that the City Centre is not abundant with
31 The smallest of McGill Ouest’s condos are 463 square feet. 87 Brendan Pinches
greenspace, schools, and other services and amenities that households with children are looking for, it is
understandable why the new built form looks the way it does, and why certain demographics are more
apt to live downtown.
Action 6.3 Foster the fulfillment of the Centre’s residential function
The Master Plan acknowledges the potential for residential projects to play a large part in the
redevelopment of Griffintown, especially in the area east of De La Montagne Street. Historically,
Griffintown was an industrial district, though industry declined following the closure of the Lachine
Canal. With a municipal will to preserve the historic character of the district and a need for new land
uses in the district, Griffintown is listed as a detailed planning area. Despite the controversy surrounding
Devimco Inc.’s much-publicised Projet Griffintown proposal, other new developments have taken root in
recent years.
Project: Lowney Lofts
Developer: Groupe Prével
Borough: Le Sud-Ouest
Date of completion: 2008 (phases I-III)
Montréal developer, Groupe Prével, has been a major actor in consolidating the area’s residential
function by jointly reusing old buildings and building new structures. The Lowney Lofts, located on the
site of the Walter M. Lowney chocolate factory, are an example of this dual approach. Upon completion,
the Lowney Loft complex will consist of four buildings, including two restored factory buildings (phases I
and II) and two new structures (phases III and IV).
88 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme
The Master Plan’s city-wide orientations for Le Sud-Ouest borough identify the location of the
Lowney Lofts as a ‘mixed use area to be built or transformed’, while the building density parameters for this part of the borough limit new construction to a height of 12 storeys. Prével began this project in
2003, with the conversion of the two existing structures, a pair of five-storey, red brick buildings that meet at a corner to form an ‘L’ shape. Phases III and IV were designed to enclose the block and form an internal private courtyard for the complex. At the time of the AH study, phase III had been completed, while phase IV had not. Lowney III is a ten-storey, red brick tower with 110 housing units. Altogether, the first three buildings in the series account for 269 housing units, and 48 of these units were purchased with the assistance of the AH grant.
The costs of restoring and renovating the historic structures in phases I and II proved to be quite costly for the developer and this was reflected in the prices of the condos and resulted in fewer affordable units on offer. With
Lowney III being built from scratch, the developer was able to offer more affordably priced units and 35 of the 48
AH grant holders in the Lowney complex bought in phase III. Figure 20. Lowney, phase III
Action 7.1 Ensure high-quality architecture and design in the Centre 89 Brendan Pinches
Ensuring that the City Centre is the “showpiece” of Montréal is a focal point of the Master Plan (see
Objective 7). The Plan includes many references to bringing cohesion to the Centre by making its streets,
squares, office buildings and residential areas into cohesive, vibrant and pleasant areas of interest. By
eliminating surface parking lots and vacant areas and raising the standard for newly-built projects, the
City will improve the architectural and design quality of the Centre.
Project: Quai de la commune
Developer: Groupe Prével
Borough: Ville-Marie
Year of completion: 2003
In the early 1990s the City, through its para-municipal development corporation32 made it a priority to
revitalise the Faubourg-des-Récollets, acquiring the land where the first two stages of the Quai de la
Commune were built. This project began before most of the highly publicised public sector investments
were made to create the Cité Multimédia in the late 1990s. The concept behind the Quai de la
Commune project was to change the way this area was perceived by emphasising and building upon the
urban character of the Faubourg-des-Récollets.
Groupe Prével,
partnered with the SDM
in 1995 and one year
later began a residential
development that had a
catalytic effect on the
Figure 21. Quai de la Commune, phase V
32 (Société immobilière du patrimoine architectural de Montréal (SIMPA) was the predecessor to SDM and SHDM)
90 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme neighbourhood. The Quai de la Commune was one of the first examples of adaptive reuse in Montréal, starting the trend towards creatively redeveloping Montréal’s obsolete industrial buildings into loft-style condos. The first two stages of the development involved refurbishing the port’s historic grain storage warehouses, while the last three were new constructions. In total 350 residential units were introduced through this development.
Groupe Cardinal Hardy Inc. were the project architects and, working closely with the City and
SDM, came up with a structuring area plan that ensured the architectural quality and urban integration of the project were up to the City’s standards. Architecturally, the project respects the existing built environment, with new structures reflecting many elements of the historic warehouses, such as the massing and facade detailing. The new buildings almost appear to be extensions of the existing ones, as they have adopted similar building alignments, setbacks and fenestration. The use of industrial materials
(brick and concrete) in the newer residential buildings is carried throughout, from the external facades to the interior spaces and is consistent with those featured in the restored warehouses and surrounding area.
This project proved to be extremely influential in demonstrating the feasibility of adaptive reuse to the Montréal development community and set a high standard for quality that neighbouring developments have sought to uphold. Only two AH grants are found in Quai de la Commune phase III, which is indicative of the growing value of real estate in this district and the affluence of the current target market for condos in this part of Ville-Marie. Units in the first phase (1996-1999) of this project sold at an average price of $113,000, while the average cost skyrocketed to $250,000 by phase 3 of the development (2003).
91 Brendan Pinches
Action 7.2 Develop the Centre’s unbuilt lots
Ensuring the well-being of Ville-Marie is a central them in the Master Plan. Condo development has
been a prominent trend in the city over the past decade and is one of the more noticeable ‘fillers’ of
vacant spaces in the City Centre. Some of the scathing responses to the massive proposals for
Griffintown were related to the fact that vacant lots are still present in other parts of the city’s
downtown.
Project: Square Cartier
Developer(s): SHDM, Les Constructions Beau-Design, Atelier habitation Montréal, Inter Loge Centre-Sud
Borough: Ville-Marie
Year of completion: (2007
Square Cartier is a co-
development project
between SHDM and
Constructions Beau-Design
Inc., located in Ville-Marie
on the east side of rue
Parthenais between Figure 22. SHDM's Square Cartier, Phase I
Boulevard de Maisonneuve and rue Sainte-Catherine. The development is situated in a neighbourhood
once known as Faubourg Sainte-Marie, where dilapidated buildings and vacant lots attest to the need
for reinvestment. Despite the availability of unbuilt parcels, developers have been hesitant to pursue
projects in the district. Even the CEO of Beau-Design, Guy Chadillon, felt that without SHDM’s
92 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme partnership, (which guarantees the sale of every unit built) the Square Cartier project would have been too risky for his company to invest in, given its scale and location33.
According to the Master Plan’s city-wide orientations for the borough, the project site is located is an area ‘to be built or transformed’ and is zoned to allow the construction of mixed use buildings from
3 to 10 stories tall. The Master Plan’s implementation measures for action 7.2 have largely been realised by the Square Cartier project. Not only did this building fill a large vacant lot, it incorporated underground parking for its residential and commercial functions (ground floor commercial spaces are present on the side of rue Saint-Catherine). Construction of underground parking inside the building takes away from above-ground parking congestion and the need for surface parking lots. Square Cartier is also an example of the type of development that the Master Plan envisioned for areas surrounding certain metro stations, the nearby Papineau station being one of them. Ease of access to the nearby metro station will promote the use of public transit by residents, especially for daily commuting.
This development is the first of two phases that will eventually account for 395 units of housing,
342 of which are available through the Accès Condo programme. An agreement between the landowner, Beau-Design, the SHDM and Inter-Loge Centre-Sud led to the inclusion of a social housing component and ensured the overall affordability of the units. Square Cartier phase I is a five-story, 160- unit building that is home to 51 AH grant holders.
Action 9.2 Convert, to a mixed-use function, changing industrial sites that could be integrated into the residential fabric
Deindustrialised areas are priority zones for redevelopment in Montréal. Many of them are located in central parts of the city, and were formerly employment generators, but once decommissioned they can
33 Diotte, 2007. 93 Brendan Pinches
have a devitalising effect on the surroundings if allowed to remain vacant or underused. Local examples
of these areas include rail corridors and land along the Lachine Canal.
Project: Angus Shops
Developer(s): Canadian Pacific Railway, Angus Development Society
Borough: Rosemont – La Petite-Patrie
Date of completion: 2006
The Angus Shops project holds a place of high regard among urban planning professionals in Canada
because it is an example of best practices that are too rarely realised. Nearly two decades of
consultation, remediation, planning and construction were needed to complete this mixed-income,
mixed-use brownfield redevelopment.
From 1904 until 1992, the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) used the Angus Shops and rail yard for
the manufacture, repair and sale of rolling stock. When the yards were closed, CPR was left with 120
acres of contaminated land. The company’s redevelopment intentions for the land were at odds with
those supported by the surrounding community. CPR’s proposal for the site was a large residential
development, while the Angus Development
Society (Société de développement Angus:
SDA), a coalition of community
representatives and financial partners, was
focused on ensuring that redevelopment
would create a node of employment in the
borough. Many local jobs had been lost in
Figure23. The final phases of the Angus project
94 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme recent decades as CPR’s functions in the area had waned and local citizens hoped to see revitalisation through renewed industry. At the same time that the shops were decommissioned, Montréal’s Official
Plan (footnote 1992 Official Plan) laid out development guidelines for the site that favoured the continued use of the land for industrial purposes. Without local and municipal support, CPR’s residential plan would not be approved. Negotiations led to a municipally approved development plan in 1995, predicated on CPR splitting the land with the SDA. The SDA proceeded to create the Angus Technopole on the western part of the property. The Technopole became a centre for biotechnology and manufacturing firms, employing more than 1000 people (Bonneau, 2008).
With the cooperation of the local community, the provincial and municipal governments, and in spite of the high costs of soil decontamination, CPR moved forward with a bold residential/commercial redevelopment plans for the remainder of the site . The development proposal was subject to an official architectural review, requiring CPR to make considerable efforts to ensure a degree of uniformity was maintained between old and new structures, on and off the site. This is reflected in the building heights, massing and materials used in both the residential and commercial components of the project. In an attempt to retain the historic character of the land’s previous use, some of the original buildings and facades were integrated into the site’s design.
The Master Plan recommends the conversion of industrial sites to mixed-use areas that can be integrated into the residential fabric. Mixed-use areas can be “complete communities” where services and places of employment (e.g. industrial, office or retail) are integrated parts of a medium/high density neighbourhood. The Master Plan emphasises that these types of communities should not be limited to the City Centre, but can thrive in areas at the periphery of the Centre where infrastructure and services are already in place. Diligent planning ensured the harmonious insertion of Angus Shops into the surrounding urban fabric of Rosemont. With its diverse housing types, retail outlets, centres of employment and greenspace, the Angus site fits the description of a complete community. By 2004 this 95 Brendan Pinches
area was described in the Master Plan as an established area. This successful transition is evidence of
how much the site benefits from its close proximity to metro stations (Préfontaine and Joliette), its
incorporation within the residential fabric of Rosemont, and its general centrality in Montréal.
In total, the Angus project produced more than 1200 residential units. Within this diverse mix of
condo, townhouse, and apartment buildings, 60 percent are market housing, 20 percent are co-op
housing, with the remaining 20 percent being non-profit rental apartments (seniors and public
housing)34. At the time of this study, only one property owner at Angus Shops was an AH grant recipient.
Built in 2004, this unit (Figure 23) is located in a 51-unit condo building. Despite the fact that this project
is not the home to a large number of grant recipients, this development is the best representation of
Master Plan action 9.2 within the AH study sample.
Action 12.1 Promote quality architecture that is ecologically sound and respectful of Montréal’s
character
The Master Plan envisions a form of consolidation where the designs of new and renovated buildings
take into account the architectural character of the surrounding structures. These considerations should
be reflected in the density, height, setback, openings and general appearance of new and adapted
buildings in the city. Increased environmental sensitivity is a concomitant priority, with the integration
of energy-efficient innovations and sustainable building practices crucial to improving a project’s
environmental standing.
Project: Imperial Lofts
Developer(s): Group Prével, Bâtir Son Quartier, Coopérative D'Habitation Manoir Bourget
Borough: Le Sud-Ouest
Date of completion: 2007
34 Thibert, 2007.
96 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme
Montréal’s slow-growth economy has contributed to its urban morphology in interesting ways. A large amount of the city’s industrial-era built form has remained intact, providing opportunities for some of this supply to be repurposed and absorbed into the residential stock. Architectural elements of city’s heritage buildings form a design lexicon that is frequently referenced by contemporary developers in order to imbue new structures with historic montréalais character.
“Revitalisation” via new residential developments is a tendency that many residents in Le Sud-
Ouest borough have grown accustomed to. Familiarity aside, new developments have not always been welcomed here. In recent years, local community groups have learned to strategically organise themselves to guarantee that their voices are heard by municipal officials and developers. Community groups often work together with a technical resources group (TRG) that “act as intermediaries between individuals or groups wishing to develop social and community housing projects, and public organisations” (Ville de Montréal, 2009).
Cosmo Maciocia, Montréal executive committee member in charge of housing, touted the Imperial Lofts project as “a private project integrating social diversity, sustainable development and respect for heritage "
(translated from Lacasse, 2006).
Cardinal Hardy won the Canadian
Institute of Planner’s 2006 Award of Figure 24. Illustration of a restored Imprial building
Excellence in the “Reurbanisation“ category for its work on the redevelopment of the Imperial Tobacco
Company’s complex in the Saint Henri neighbourhood. The project involved the construction of one new building and the conversion of seven industrial buildings into condominiums. The project developer, 97 Brendan Pinches
Groupe Prével, worked closely with Bâtir son Quartier35 and community groups in the borough to
exceed the objectives of Montréal’s Inclusion Strategy. Imperial includes 486 housing units, 170 (or 35
percent) of these are affordable housing units and an additional 78 (or 16 percent) are social housing
and community housing units. Parallels can be drawn between the Imperial Lofts and Prével’s previous
projects, such as Quai de la Commune and Lowney Lofts, both of which had catalytic effects on their
surrounding neighbourhoods.
The visual prominence and longstanding presence of Imperial Tobacco along the thoroughfare
rue Saint Antoine Ouest, makes it a landmark in the local urban tissue. The project architects, Cardinal
Hardy, paid special attention to the enhancement of the unique architectural character of the Imperial
buildings, some of which dated back as far as 1906. In some cases (Phase II) this meant stripping off
sheets of aluminum cladding from the 1960s to reveal the original concrete facades. In other cases it
meant designing an entirely new structure that borrowed architectural form and details from the
existing Imperial buildings, creating unity within the built environment, rather than disrupting it.
Prével went to great lengths to produce a development that not only exceeded the social and
architectural goals of the City, but also addressed the challenge of doing so in an ecologically sustainable
way. In terms of sustainability, this project goes far beyond the reuse of existing buildings, which in itself
is a notable achievement. The developer made certain that recyclable materials were sorted from the
demolition and construction waste and diverted from the landfill. During restoration of the buildings,
priority was given to the use of local materials where possible. The restored facades is are painted white
in order to absorb less solar energy in the summer. The restored buildings also feature reflective roof
coatings, which lower rooftop temperatures and decrease the need for air conditioning inside the
buildings. Alternatively, solar energy is used to heat the complex’s rooftop swimming pool. Further
energy saving contributions are made through the use of high efficiency lighting in the building’s
common areas and low-E (low-emissivity) argon windows throughout.
35Bâtir son Quartier is a technical resources group (TRG).
98 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme
Permeable, landscaped surfaces were introduced as soft-landscaping on the building’s grounds in order to mitigate the ‘heat island’ effect of the complex. Rainwater is captured and recycled to water the grounds, including the condo’s green roof. Responsible water management practices extend to the internal functions of the buildings, where all units have been fitted with flow control (dual flush) toilets.
In addition to the sustainable features of the Imperial Lofts, residents are also presented with active options to live in a more ecologically responsible way, such as ground-floor access to a recycling facility.
With nearby access to metro stations36, indoor and outdoor bike storage and reserved Communauto parking spaces, Imperial residents are provided with opportunities to use alternative transit modes.
Within the study sample, 60 households accessed properties in the Imperial Lofts project with the assistance of the AH programme.
Action 13.1 Enhance the quality of the public realm
The Master Plan lists public spaces, in the form of streets, parks and plazas, as the city’s most valuable asset. In the past, Mercier – Hochelega-Maisonneuve’s image was tarnished by its reputation as an impoverished and unsafe part of the City. It is fair to say that the scarcity of new investment in quality public gathering places in the borough is in some way related to its socio-economic struggles. Beyond the construction of many new condo units, the borough is actively trying to foster an environment of safety and comfort that extends to its public realm. One such environment is provided by Place Simon-
Valois, the centrepiece of the revitalisation process in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve.
Project: Place Simon-Valois
Developer: Samcon, City of Montréal, Société de développement commercial (SDC) Promenade Ontario
36 Both Lionel-Groulx and Place Saint-Henri stations are within 1 km of the Imperial Lofts. 99 Brendan Pinches
Borough: Mercier – Hochelaga-Maisonneuve
Date of completion: 2006
Place Simon-Valois is a mixed-
used development on the corner of Rue
Ontario and Rue Valois. At the heart of
the development is a public square that
is owned by the City of Montréal. The Figure 25. Place Simon Valois, public space enclosed with new development
square was named after the individual who owned the site during the nineteenth century. The square is
situated in a place of significance, as it sits on the boundary line between the former municipalities of
Hochelaga and Maisonneuve (Bonneau, 2008). The square was realised through a joint process and was
the result of extensive public consultation and cooperation between City and borough officials together
with private-sector companies. Even the design of the space brought together community members,
City planners, urban designers from the borough and the private sector landscape architect, Peter
Soland. The creation of new public space in the borough included the development of a green pathway
along the corridor where a decommissioned section of rail track was removed during the reconstruction
of the area. With Place Simon-Valois serving as a hub along the route, the new path offers a unique
opportunity for pedestrians to travel diagonally through the neighbourhood’s orthogonal grid, an
embodiment of the City’s intent to “emphasise the importance of pedestrians in the city” and
“encourage pedestrian travel through better design of public spaces” (Ville de Montréal).
New construction quickly took shape around the square on both sides of rue Ontario Est.
Samcon is responsible for the two new structures built directly on the square. These buildings define the
periphery of the public area, providing some physical shelter to the square and creating a sense of
100 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme enclosure within the space. Both of Samcon’s buildings incorporate retail elements. The smaller of the two buildings, on the corner of avenue Bourbonnière and rue Ontario Est, features a large restaurant with an attractive ground floor patio looking out onto the square. Two floors of residential units have been included above this restaurant and one AH grant recipient address is located here. The second
Samcon building is set back from rue Ontario, with the square separating it from the street. The ground floor of this building is occupied by an assortment of specialty retail outlets, many of which have outdoor seating that faces out onto the public square. There are two floors of housing above the retail and 6 AH grant holders live in this building.
Action 15.2 Protect heritage buildings
Montréal has made a consistent effort to balance the identification and protection of heritage buildings with the restoration, renovation and adaptation of its older buildings. Adaptive reuse is a preferred alternative to demolition, though alterations should be done in a manner that does not compromise the historic character of the structure.
Project: La Biscuiterie
Developer(s): SHDM, Société en commandite Viau-Ontario, Bâtir son quartier
Borough: Mercier-Hochelaga-Maisonneuve
Year of completion: 2007
The Viau Bakery is listed as a significant architecture and heritage building (Ville de Montréal, 2004), despite the fact it is not within a “heritage area of exceptional value”. Its importance is linked both to its period of construction and its architectural merit. The conversion of the Viau Bakery from a cookie 101 Brendan Pinches
factory to residential lofts, known as La
Biscuiterie, contributed to the emergence of
a vibrant new neighbourhood in Mercier-
Hochelaga-Maisonneuve. The Viau Bakery
site is emblematic of the challenges faced by
this particular part of the borough, an area
that had previously only been associated
with commercial and manufacturing Figure 26. The former Viau cookie factory
facilities and was in search of a new vocation in the wake of its deindustrialisation. After the bakery
ceased production in 2003, it sat vacant for three years until a zoning change and an extensive
renovation process recast it as a condo building.
La société en commandite Viau-Ontario (Partnership Viau-Ontario) purchased the historic
building and formed a strategic partnership with SHDM that made affordability a central objective of the
project. SHDM’s involvement ensured that buyers could take advantage of the Accès Condo programme
and that a large number of units would qualify for the AH grant.
Built in 1905, the factory is an architecturally significant industrial heritage building. The project
architects, Groupe Cardinal Hardy, were no strangers with this type of work, having previously
converted the Redpath Sugar Mill and Lowney chocolate factory into loft-style condominiums. Beyond
project’s affordability and location (only 1km from Viau metro station), buyers were attracted to the
opportunity to live in a former industrial building that still featured its distinctive wooden “mill-floor”
ceilings and exposed-brick interior (Boileau-Bachand et al.). Renovations took place from 2006 to 2007,
and formed the space into 1, 2 and 3-bedroom units, as well as six penthouse suites, altogether
comprising 182 units of housing. Assistance from the AH programme enabled 80 households to
purchase a condo in La Biscuiterie.
102 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme
Land adjacent to the historic factory was sold along with the factory and was subsequently developed by other promoters, yielding an additional 126 housing units. Abutting the original factory on its north side (Rue Viau), Phase II of La Biscuiterie, with 70 condo units, became home to 20 AH grant holders. Across Rue Viau, the former site of Viau Bakery’s administration office building is now occupied by a 56 unit condo development from Samcon, known as Le Bourg Viau. This 3-storey structure is home to 11 grant recipients.
Action 17.5 Pursue the rehabilitation of contaminated sites with government funding
and
Action 17.6 Give priority to rehabilitating contaminated sites in the vicinity of certain metro and commuter train stations, as well as in areas to be transformed
One of the biggest obstacles to the municipal vision of residential consolidation37 is the contamination of otherwise developable land. Contamination is most prevalent in areas that have been intensely used for industrial purposes for many years. In Montréal, this problem is largely limited to the Island’s south central boroughs. In Quebec, varying degrees of remediation are required depending on the type of development proposed for contaminated land38, with residential uses requiring the most thorough level of decontamination. In light of these requirements, redevelopment of brownfield sites can be cost- prohibitive, especially in comparison to greenfield development. Higher development costs stem from extra planning and site preparation procedures, including demolition, environmental assessments and environmental remediation (soil and/or groundwater). Brownfield sites also tend to require extensive public consultation to alleviate local concerns regarding planned changes to land use.
37 see Master Plan, Objective 2 38 in accordance with Quebec’s Environmental Quality Act 103 Brendan Pinches
Project: Le Quai des éclusiers
Developer(s): Développements des Éclusiers Inc.
Borough: Le Sud-Ouest
Year of completion: 2004
Le Sud-Ouest is perhaps the best context from which to Figure 27. Le Quai des éclusiers, on the edge of the Lachine Canal draw an example of a contaminated site that has been
rehabilitated. Due to its central position near the Lachine Canal, Le Sud-Ouest was once the heartland of
the Montréal’s industrial development. When the St. Lawrence Seaway was completed in 1959, the
shipping industry abandoned the Lachine Canal. In neighbourhoods such as Saint-Henri, a string of
abandoned factories and mills were left to decay along the banks of the polluted canal. It was here that
the reformation of the borough began to take place. The Canal was reopened to recreational watercraft
in 2002 and a growing number of property developers began to initiate projects in the area. Quai des
éclusiers is one of these projects, and it serves as an example of a successful brownfield redevelopment.
This project was realised by Développements des Éclusiers Inc., which was actually a consortium of
property developers (Groupe ALTA, SOCAM and Groupe Summa) that joined forces specifically for this
project.
In 2002, a sprawling, abandoned metal processing complex, known as the Hodgson Foundry,
was demolished to make way for Le Quai des éclusiers condo development. The site was most recently
owned by Stelco Inc., but had been home to foundry applications since 1889, leaving its soil polluted
with heavy metals and other contaminants. Redevelopment of this site was encouraged through
financial incentives provided by the City of Montréal and the Government of Quebec, helping to offset
104 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme the costs of rehabilitation39. Revi-Sols, a programme initiated by the Government of Quebec to rehabilitate contaminated land, contributed $820,000. A further $800,000 was provided by the City of
Montréal to demolish the industrial buildings on the site. Remediation costs for this project totalled upwards of $6 million, the balance of which were borne by the developers. Local community members and affordable housing advocates pushed for the developers to include social and affordable housing in their plans, but the developers were able to convince borough administrators that doing so would ruin their financial model, as the remediation costs had been so high.
The Quai des éclusiers project appealed to the City as a site for redevelopment because its close proximity to the Place Saint-Henri metro station supports the ameliorative intentions of Action 17.6.
Quai des éclusiers was builit on land that was already designated for residential use and the project took full advantage of the allowed building height of 6 storeys. Besides being only a five-minute walk from St-
Henri Metro station, this development is near Atwater Market and most impressively, the Lachine Canal.
As if to emphasise the metamorphosis that both the borough and the Canal have undergone in the last decade, developers built a private dock, complete with kayaks, for residents of the development to use.
Quai des éclusiers contains 44 AH grant recipient units.
39 see Action 17.5 105 Brendan Pinches
8. CONCLUSION
The purpose of this study is to demonstrate how the Acess to Homeownership (AH) programme
functions not only as an instrument for increasing access to affordable housing for first-time
homebuyers in Montréal, but also as a tool of city-building through its contribution to the achievement
of official planning objectives.
Only rarely do municipalities implement a housing policy, such as the AH programme, that persists
over decades, especially one that addresses both supply and demand-side dynamics. The AH
programme has been successful in fulfilling its mandate within the municipal housing strategy and
meeting its primary objectives, namely facilitating affordable homeownership, and thereby also
expanding the City’s tax base. It is clear that the programme has also acted as an instrument of city-
building, as it has influenced the distribution and price levels of new housing and the achievement of
Actions listed in the Master Plan.
Ways in which the programme can be improved and areas for further research are also apparent
and identified in this study. In this regard, priority should be given to the development of conditional
incentives and an awareness of the extent to which these conditions (or criteria) could be put into
practice without negatively affecting the popularity of the programme with either developers or
homebuyers. Whatever changes are made to the programme, administrators should strive to maintain
the programme’s ability to pays for itself in the long term, while enhancing its proven capacity to
contribute to official city building objectives.
106 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme
8.1. Summary
Beginning with a literature review, this study describes how historic events, instances of government involvement and market forces have shaped the Canadian housing system. In order to understand Canadian housing policy, an appreciation of the country’s housing system is essential. The focus then shifts to the Montréal context and the influence of municipal housing policies on the local and regional housing markets. After detailing the reasons behind the City’s recent emphasis on revitalization through subsidised residential development and homeownership, the history of the AH programme and an explanation of its aims are summarised.
The next chapter presents general results from the analysis of AH programme data in order to extend a basic understanding of the programme’s contribution to the municipal housing supply. The addresses of AH grant recipients are found to be spatially distributed across the City of Montréal, with areas of concentration generally located in the city’s most populated central districts. Single-person households comprise the dominant share of AH grant recipients and the number of households with children among grant recipients is disproportionately low. Most properties purchased with the programme’s assistance are one or two-bedroom walk-up condominiums, generally located on the periphery of the City Centre. Units located in the City Centre proper are known to have smaller floor areas and to be located in taller buildings.
The general themes of the Master Plan provide an additional perspective on how the location of
AH grant recipient households relate to the changes envisioned by the Plan. The AH programme was designed prior to the conception of the Master Plan, but has been renewed and revised since the Plan’s introduction. It is necessary for all municipal programmes to align with the planning and development directives of the Master Plan, but this is not always the case in practice. The divergence between stated planning goals and real actions is not only a possibility but a reality in many contexts. Intensification and 107 Brendan Pinches
revitalisation are central themes in the Plan and a large majority of the subject dwellings are found to be
located within City-identified revitalisation areas and especially in areas near transit infrastructure.
Finally, housing projects (home to at least one AH grant recipient) were selected to illustrate
how the programme has promoted the implementation of specific Master Plan Actions. Before it can be
said that the AH programme has supported the aims of the Master Plan, the limitations of this claim
must be recognised. There is an argument to be made that, since the Master Plan is somewhat vague
and open-ended, it is difficult to conduct a robust analysis of the extent to which the Plan’s Actions have
been fulfilled or the degree to which the AH programme has been responsible for any such fulfillment. It
is true that the Master Plan is “vague”, in the sense that it presents a general vision and a wide range of
actions to be implemented over an extended period of time. The Master Plan functions as a central
piece in a larger planning structure. It is important to understand that the “planning” that takes place
within this “structure” is not limited to the work of the municipal administration, but also includes the
actions of other private organisations (business, institutions, community groups, faith groups) and public
organisations (para-public agencies, other levels of government). The Objectives, Goals and Actions of
the Master Plan were not designed to be fulfilled by any one programme or agency independently. On
this basis, the use of example projects is a reasonable means for further evaluating the programme’s
contribution to the Master Plan, despite the indirect and immeasurable nature of that relationship. On
the evidence of the example projects highlighted in this study, it can be said that the AH programme has
contributed to the operationalisation of many housing-related Master Plan Actions.
This study has shown that the roles played by both public agencies and private developers
actively influence the location of AH grant recipient units. The effect of the Société d'habitation et de
développement de Montréal‘s (SHDM) involvement in the production of market affordable housing
cannot be overlooked. The SHDM often partners with private developers to realise its developments.
These projects occur in areas where developers are hesitant to invest on their own. Projects instigated
108 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme by the SHDM can have a knock-on effect, where private developers begin to take interest in an area after a successful publicly-sponsored project has been built there. To fulfill its mandate, the SHDM puts the planning policies of the City into practice; therefore, it is no surprise that SHDM projects containing
AH grant recipient units are all located within the City-identified revitalisation areas. The SHDM produces projects that are very popular with AH recipients for a couple of reasons: the high value of
SHDM projects, and the concomitant opportunity for homebuyers to take part in the Access Condos programme. The SHDM’s promotion of the AH programme alongside its own projects has increased the profile of the AH programme. The projects with the largest numbers of AH grant recipient households are either SHDM-partnered projects or large private developments that meet the Inclusionary Housing
Strategy’s target for affordable units.
Figure 28. Access Condo web advertisement
Montréal’s Inclusionary Housing Strategy has compelled developers to meet affordable housing targets in their large-scale projects. Wherever these inclusive projects are found, AH grant recipient units are found as well, because the AH programme price limits are an accepted price benchmark for market affordable units. 109 Brendan Pinches
For the most part, developers have operated within the boundaries of the AH programme in a
manner that has been mutually beneficial to their business objectives and to the policy directives of the
municipal administration. The price limits of the AH programme encourage developers to locate projects
in parts of the city where the cost of land is low. For the most part, these areas coincide with the
revitalisation areas identified by the City. Hochelaga-Maisonneuve and the Sud-Ouest are two areas that
are centrally located with good access to transit, making them appealing locations for developers to
build. Developers in Montréal have not only provided housing units that fit the price structure of the AH
programme, they have also consistently advertised the programme to prospective buyers.
The difficulty of developing a three-bedroom unit within the price structure of the programme
has bowed the programme in a noticeable way. The paucity of affordable three-bedroom dwelling units
has been highlighted as one reason for the lack of households with children among grant recipients. City
housing administrators recognise the shortage of market affordable family dwellings as an ongoing
problem and the biggest challenge facing the AH programme going forward. Without family-friendly
options at reasonable price points, families will not choose to reside in Montréal; they will continue to
favour the suburbs. The Master Plan is silent on this issue, although the concern has come to the
forefront of more recent policy documents, notably Pour grandir à Montréal - Family Policy (2008) and
the subsequent Family Action Plan, 2008-2012.
The City’s Urban Housing for Families programme (translated from Habitations urbaines pour
familles: HUF) was established in 2008 to induce developers to build family-friendly housing. The HUF
programme has a set of design criteria40 that projects proposed by developers must meet in order to
eligible for programme funding. These criteria establish the number of rooms that eligible units must
include41, the minimum floor area required, as well as the maximum price per square metre that units
40 See Appendix F (page 119) for a list of HUF criteria 41 According to HUF guidelines, eligible dwellings must include at least 5 habitable rooms, with at least 3 bedrooms
110 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme can be sold for. Design elements that are mandatory requirements, as laid out by the criteria, include private outdoor space, high quality soundproofing, and a sufficient supply of storage space. The success of the HUF programme is dependent on the willingness of developers to be involved with it. The Ville de
Montréal’s website presents two projects under the HUF banner: the Habitats des Équinoxes - Habitats des Migrations (Saint-Laurent) and Parc Saint-Victor (Mercier–Hochelaga-Maisonneuve). The Parc Saint-
Victor development features units that are priced within the limits of the AH programme, while all units in the Habitats des Équinoxes - Habitats des Migrations project are priced beyond the AH programme limits. At this point in time, it is too early to determine if the HUF programme will stimulate meaningful engagement with the development community and whether or not the resulting housing product will be priced to fit within the AH programme’s price limits.
8.2. Recommendations
Encouraging households with children to choose Montréal as their place of residence has long been an implicit theme of the AH programme, and this aim has been made explicit in the most recent version of the programme. In April 2010, new terms for the AH programme were announced. Changes made to the programme include the introduction of a “family housing” designation for dwelling units that meet specific criteria and are thereby eligible for higher purchase prices and larger grant amounts.
In the spirit of this recent change, I recommend the further implementation of conditional incentives based on a set of associated criteria. The AH programme could incorporate a set of criteria, similar to the six criteria of the HUF programme, to steer homebuyers towards better-designed dwellings.
Prospective homebuyers would look for units with design features, such as a balcony and, as a result, would benefit from an increased subsidy or larger allowable purchase limit. 111 Brendan Pinches
The better alignment of the criteria used by the AH (family housing category) and HUF
programmes42 is another step that could be taken to improve the AH programme. The ready-made
nature of the HUF criteria43 provide an established list of design features to be incorporated into the AH
programme’s criteria. Earlier in this study, there is mention of the mutual benefits to both the AH and
Access Condos programmes because of the complementary manner in which they co-exist. I believe that
a greater integration between the AH and HUF programmes would see equally positive results.
Improving the complementarity between the two programmes might ensure that “family housing”
accessed through the AH programme would be of the same standard as that developed through the HUF
programme.
In the same way that the inclusion of design features could be encouraged through conditional
incentives, specific areas of preoccupation in current planning policy could be pursued. For example, if
the City felt compelled to promote residential development near transit nodes, extra incentives could be
allocated to units within transit‐oriented developments.
Changing the programme, as suggested above, would certainly make the administration of the
AH programme a more complicated and, potentially, a more costly endeavour. Theoretically, the
incentives for meeting certain criteria could be incorporated into the existing cost structure of the
programme. Any decision to increase the price thresholds of the programme would not be taken lightly
by programme administrators, as one of the central themes of the programme is affordability. From a
budgetary perspective, the feasibility of increasing the net amount of grant dollars awarded by the
programme would also have to be carefully examined. As the Master Plan states, municipal programmes
should generate more tax revenue over the longer term than the amount of assistance granted.
42 Prescribed features for family housing differ, sometimes inexplicably, between the AH and HUF programmes. The minimum floor area per unit is one such example (AH programme = 96 metres squared, HUF programme = 102 metres squared).
112 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme
8.3. Future Research
The logical expansion of this study, as has been proposed on a preliminary basis under Professor
Nik Luka’s Making space in the city study, would include a more in-depth survey of the urban form and milieu de vie in the contexts of this study’s subject dwellings.
While this study gives some attention to the character of the city and suburban districts containing subject dwellings, there would be value in conducting an extensive evaluation of these contexts based on ‘classic’ urban form attributes such as permeability of pedestrian circulation networks, built form typologies, and architectural heterogeneity.
Further insight could be gained through a more comprehensive documentation of the milieu de vie of the subject dwellings. This documentation would integrate contextual factors such as physical barriers to walkability, public‐transit accessibility, and the quality of the shops, services, and amenities within easy walking distance. The proposed research would bring urban design considerations to the fore and address questions that were not resolved within the scope of this study:
What experiential qualities characterise the settings in which the subject dwellings are found?
What are some of the phenomenological attributes that can be associated with these newly-
built (sub)urban spaces?
Are the settings in which the subject dwellings are found places of high experiential quality or
are they banal?
The materiality of housing as well as the everyday experiential and functional qualities of different milieu de vie are areas that are often overlooked in housing studies. Future research can fill in the gaps around the question of design and contribute to the iterative improvement of the AH programme.
113 Brendan Pinches
114 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme
APPENDIX A: Versions of the Municipal Homeownership programme delivered as tax credits – 1989-2002
(source: compiled from CIEB 2000: Ville de Montréal)
115 Brendan Pinches
APPENDIX B: Access to Homeownerhip (AH) programme - direct grant – 2003- 2009
(source: compiled from Habiter Montréal information: Ville de Montréal)
116 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme
APPENDIX C: Access to Homeownerhip (AH) programme – direct grant - 2010
(source: compiled from Habiter Montréal information: Ville de Montréal)
117 Brendan Pinches
APPENDIX D: Montreal Master Plan – Goals and Objectives
(source: Ville de Montréal, 2004)
118 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme
APPENDIX E: Montreal Master Plan – Actions
(source: Ville de Montréal, 2004)
119 Brendan Pinches
APPENDIX F: HUF - Unit Design Criteria for Proposed Projects
(source: Habitations urbaines pour familles , Ville de Montréal, 2008, translated)
WHAT TYPE OF HOUSING MAY BE FUNDED?
For a given project, only the so-called family homes are eligible for grants. The program provides family housing based on six criteria:
1. Minimum area. The dwelling must include at least 5 habitable rooms,with at least 3 bedrooms, and present an interior surface of at least102 metres squared.
2. Near to the ground or landscaped rooftop terrace. Housing must be located under the fifth above ground floor of a building, or be below the fifth floor from the rooftop if it features a landscaped terrace of the tower-skirt variety and is accessible to building occupants. Note that if a portion of the housing is arranged in a semi-basement, this part does must not exceed half the living space.
3. Private outdoor space .The unit must have outdoor private space, either at ground level, or on an outdoor terrace with a minimum area of 7 metres squared, with a minimum width of 2.5 metres.
4. Superior soundproofing. The composition of the wall should achieve a Sound Transmission Class (STC) rating of 55 and a minimum Impact Insulation Class (IIC) rating of at least 50 decibels.
5. Sufficient storage space. Housing must be a minimum of 4 square meters of storage space, excluding closets, inside the housing and having access to a private or public storage at the ground floor of the building or in the basement of the building, as long as it is directly accessible from outside building.
6. Maximum price. The dwelling unit shall be sold at a maximum price of $2,475 per square meter, including taxes, if it is part of a wood frame building, or be sold at a maximum price of $3,175 per square meter, including taxes, if it is part of a concrete walled building. No rental units are eligible for a grant under this program
120 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme
121 Brendan Pinches
IMAGE SOURCES
Figure 4. New development on Ontario Street. McGill WCUDS team. Unpublished, August 2009.
Figure 5. Renovated building on Rene Levesque. McGill WCUDS team. Unpublished, August 2009.
Figure 7. Typical new, three-storey condo building. McGill WCUDS team. Unpublished, August 2009.
Figure 8. Wilson street in Lachine: dizzying repetition. McGill WCUDS team. Unpublished, August 2009.
Figure 9. Example of small-scale infill. McGill WCUDS team. Unpublished, August 2009.
Figure 14. NOVO’s linear park. McGill WCUDS team. Unpublished, August 2009.
Figure 15. Terrace on Cote-des-Neiges. McGill WCUDS team. Unpublished, August 2009.
Figure 16. Part of Axxco’s large-scale infill development. McGill WCUDS team. Unpublished, August 2009.
Figure 17. An example of adaptive reuse in Parc-Extension. McGill WCUDS team. Unpublished, August 2009.
Figure 18. Côté Ouest. [Online image] Available http://www.devmont.net/images/g-coteouestp1- 01.jpg, July 3, 2010.
Figure 19. McGill Ouest. [Online image] Available http://urbancapital.ca/html_site/project.php?ID=mcgillouest, June 20, 2010.
Figure 20. Lowney Loft. [Online image] Available http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj138/Gilbert_mtl/image004.jpg, July 13, 2010.
Figure 21. Chamberland, Martin. “Quai de la Commune.” Photo. La Presse, August 15, 2008.
Figure 22. Mailloux, Robert. “Square Cartier.” Photo. La Presse, January 18, 2008.
Figure 23. The final phases of the Angus project. McGill WCUDS team. Unpublished, August 2009.
Figure 24. Imperial condos. [Online image] Available http://www.guidehabitation.ca/en/1647/lofts- imperial/, June 20, 2010.
Figure 25. Boily, David. “Place Simon-Valois.” Photo. La Presse, September 21, 2009.
Figure 26. La Biscuiterie. [Online image] Available http://www.flickr.com/photos/allabouteve/434016924/in/set-72157600026785207/, June 30, 2010.
Figure 27. Le Quai des éclusiers. [Online image] Available http://www.lequai.ca/main.cfm?p=01_130&l=en&ProjetID=5, May 16, 2010.
122 Providing a home and then some: a study of Montreal’s Homeownership programme
Figure 28. Access Condo web advertisement. [Online image] Available http://www.shdm.org/acces_condos/en/projet_fiche.php?projet_id=170, May 26, 2010.
123 Brendan Pinches
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