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Important decisions will be made in the coming months about the future of the Namur-Hippodrome district, whose development will have a major impact on the supply of housing.

This district, which includes the former Blue Bonnets racetrack, is partly publicly owned, and the City of Montreal intends to build an eco-district of 12,500 housing units, including 6,000 on the Blue Bonnets site, some of which will be intended to benefit low- and modest-income Montrealers.

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The City of Montreal and the Quebec government announced May 29 the creation of the Groupe d’Accélération pour l’Optimisation du Projet de l’Hippodrome. GALOPH is made up of 15 members, including leaders in the real estate and financial industries who have been responsible for many of the large-scale residential projects that have transformed or are transforming downtown, Centre-Sud, Sud-Ouest and Griffintown.

The committee includes representatives of investment funds Claridge, Ivanhoé-Cambridge (CDPQ) and Fonds de solidarité FTQ, as well as executives from real-estate development companies Prével, Broccolini and Mouvement Desjardins. To a lesser extent, the committee includes representatives from public and community organizations. Its mission is to draw up a business plan that is “balanced and makes it possible to achieve social objectives, while remaining relevant to investors.”

The creation of GALOPH comes after the real-estate industry appeared to balk at a call for tenders on the former racetrack site for a project that would include 60 per cent affordable housing, suggesting the city’s stringent affordability requirements were hindering development in the area.

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The previous model implemented by Mayor Valérie Plante’s administration was unworkable for developers, because they couldn’t make a profit from it, according to Pierre Boivin, president and CEO of Claridge and co-chair of GALOPH.

The conclusion to be drawn from this is that the development of the Namur-Hippodrome district envisioned by GALOPH will now have to make more room for profit and less for affordable housing. In the absence of substantial public funding to provide a genuine alternative, the public and community players gathered around the table will have little chance of changing anything. They will have to make do, once again, with the leftovers. As has been the case for nearly 20 years, social housing needs are likely to take a back seat.

Along with the Bridge-Bonaventure sector, the Namur-Hippodrome district is one of the last major sites to be developed. The municipal administration is certainly in a difficult position, as it is under heavy pressure from real-estate lobbies and the provincial government, which has threatened to take over the site unless it moves forward more quickly. We deplore that the city seems to have given up on a vision of a social-oriented development on one the few pieces of municipal property.

By opening the door to blatant conflicts of interest — the members of GALOPH could directly benefit from the plan they propose — the creation of this committee is not only an invitation to the fox to enter the henhouse, but also to manage it.

Chloé Beaulieu, Louis Gaudreau, Luise Hellwig, Jason Prince and Eric Shragge are members of the housing committee at Prenons la ville, a coalition of social activists and community groups.

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