Summer doldrums on the waterfront
Montreal’s 375th birthday beach projects won’t be ready this year
Sun worshippers who were hoping to spend some sunny afternoons this summer at two new beaches promised for Montreal’s 375th birthday will have to wait until next summer to start enjoying them.
And that new swimming facility near the Clock Tower beach in the Old Port? It won’t be ready this summer, either.
Chantal Rouleau, the executive committee member responsible for water and water infrastructure with the city of Montreal, conceded these beach and swimming projects are taking longer than the administration had hoped. But she said the city’s birthday has been a catalyst, the big push that was needed to get these projects funded and off the ground.
“We wanted to have everything done for the 375th, but we can’t do it all for the 375th,” Rouleau said in an interview with the Montreal Gazette.
“The important thing is to do it all well, because what we know now is that access to the river, to the waterways has become very important to the people of Montreal.”
The Plage de l’Est at the eastern tip of the island was a pet project of Rouleau’s back when she was an environmentalist and community activist, long before she became mayor of the Rivière-desPrairies—Pointe-aux-Trembles borough and then joined Mayor Denis Coderre’s party.
Rouleau said work on the Plage de l’Est project has been slowed by demands from the provincial environment department for additional studies of the riverbed at the site. But Rouleau said work is beginning on the land elements of the project, and she was excited to see trucks and mechanical shovels at the site on a recent Sunday visit.
“The Plage de l’Est has been in the planning for over 10 years. It was seen as a utopian idea back then. But now, we are doing it.”
The site will include a wading pool (that will be used as a skating rink in winter), courts for beach sports like volleyball, a chalet, and a boardwalk that will link all the elements and then extend out over the water and culminate in a lookout.
Rouleau said the riverbed will eventually be covered with shingles, or flat pebbles, rather than sand, since sand would quickly disappear in the fast-moving waters of the St. Lawrence River.
Those currents still need to be studied, as do the effects of changing the shoreline and riverbed would have on various species.
“We have to take into account the ecosystems, breeding periods of fish — there are all sorts of things. We have to do it safely for humans and for the environment,” Rouleau said.
“The site will change completely. Right now, it’s a vacant lot, but it will be very beautiful. It will be welcoming, and we will be ready to receive people next summer.”
In Verdun, a long debate over where to put the planned $4.1-million beach project is finally over. Out of four possible sites, the borough has settled on the shore behind the Verdun Auditorium.
But when calls for tender finally went out, the lowest bid came back at $5.6 million. Council rejected all the bids. Now the project has been scaled back substantially, says Verdun borough Mayor Jean-François Parenteau.
The new plan has a reduced landscaped area, a planned concrete wall will now be made of stone, and a wide pathway of paving stones has been narrowed. A plan to have concrete steps descending into the water have also been scrapped.
He described the new project as less elaborate, and more natural than the original one. It will still include a 17-metre pier, a sandy beach, and a safe and wheelchairaccessible swimming area in the river with a sandy bottom. The current, which is too fast at this point on the river for safe swimming, will be slowed by the pier and an underwater structure.
Parenteau expects a bid for the contract to be approved at the June 27 borough council meeting. If that is the case, the project should be finished “on time and under budget,” Parenteau said, although not in time for this summer season.
“The first full season will be next year, in 2018. But for sure, you will see a picture of me at the end of this year ... I will be there with my Speedo. In September, I think we will be swimming. We promised delivery of the beach for this year and that will be done.”
As for plans to create a safe swimming area near the popular artificial beach on the Clock Tower dock in the Old Port, Rouleau confirmed progress on that project is even slower than the beaches.
“We have identified the site at the Clock Tour dock. We have to do some studies there, because there are currents and other considerations ... We wanted it to be in place by now, but we have to do those studies. They are indispensable. I can’t talk about a schedule. It would be irresponsible” to give a date, she said.
We have to take into account the ecosystems, breeding periods of fish — there are all sorts of things.