The ink has barely dried on a zoning change request in the Pierrefonds-Roxboro borough and already the plan is coming under fire.
Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante is upset with borough officials who are considering allowing a new 349-unit seniors’ home to be built in a forested area near George Springate Park.
Plante took to her Twitter account to denounce the idea, writing on Feb. 7, “We’re in 2021, not 1950.”
“It’s about finding the right spot, and in Pierrefonds-Roxboro, there’s a ton of spaces where he can actually build a very good project for seniors,” the mayor said during a Zoom press conference on Monday afternoon.
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Pierrefonds-Roxboro Borough Mayor Jim Beis told Global News there are no plans to raze trees to make way for the project. But there is limited space available to build because new flood plain laws preclude construction of new housing starts at some locations.
“The democratic process we’re in right now is to look at the potential zoning change that would allow for a building of this magnitude to be placed in that location,” Beis told Global News.
The proposed location for the seniors’ home is next to an existing park in a residential area of this Montreal bedroom community.
Online reaction to the proposed location is mixed; even if a zoning change was approved there would still be many more regulatory steps to be approved before any construction could begin.
