This one-year community-driven project examines a midtown Montréal sector generally seen as having an abundance of affordable yet decet housing, but where housing costs have increased since 2001 from below the CMA average to being equal or greater, creating various problems of displacement (albeit not de-facto 'gentrification'). With its unremarkable location (neither central nor near to regional amenities) and its diverse mix of housing (by structural type and tenure), Lachine is an important case study for comparative studies in the three CMAs on which the BSH focuses: while 'under the radar' for intense up-filtering, it is facing an affordability crunch. Crucially, however, it is also where the municipal government is developing a demostration 'éco-quartier' on disused industrial lands through a Programme particulier d'urbanisme (PPU ; see https://www.mamh.gouv.qc.ca/amenagement-du-territoire/guide-la-prise-de…), with hundreds of new dwellings and infrastructure improvements to be introduced.
Our team will explore policy strategies that can be applied elsewhere in Montréal, Toronto, and/or Vancouver through three work packets:
- Complete a study of the overall condition («salubrité») of housing in certain subsectors of Lachine that continue to be plagued by substandard conditions
- Develop an inventory of the condition of buildings that are disused, abandoned, for sale, and/or dilapidated, and which could be acquired by a local non-profit housing organisation with relative ease;
- Identify responsive land practices that could be piloted in the PPU and extended across the rest of the Lachine territory, including interviews with key stakeholders on feasibility and scalability.