LACHINE HOUSING PROJECT
VillaNova construction set to begin
More than a year and a half after it was originally scheduled, construction on a major housing development in Lachine is now set to begin the first week of June.
Work on the VillaNova development was first scheduled to start in the summer of 2016, but it was put on hold after a section of the site tested positive for heavy metals.
“To our great surprise, and everyone’s great surprise, a piece of land that we purchased with a certificate of decontamination and a certificate signed by the Minster of Environment saying that it was completely clean was nowhere near being clean,” said Paolo Catania, a strategic adviser to the project and, through another company, one of the main shareholders of the developer, Développement Lachine Est.
Catania was acquitted last week of charges related to a land deal with the City of Montreal. But that doesn’t have anything to do with the timing of the construction announcement, he said.
“Besides a personal relief from that nightmare, nothing has changed. I did everything I had to to make this project a success in the past.”
Développement Lachine Est has been in bankruptcy protection, managed by a trustee as it decontaminated the land and began infrastructure work. Catania said he now expects that to change.
“Unfortunately, when the decontamination started and all these issues, we got into a disagreement with the city and the city believed that because of the situation, permits would be revoked, and the only way to protect ourselves was to actually use this protection mode so that things would not be revoked unilaterally,” he said. “Financially, the company is sound. It was a never a financial issue.”
Decontamination on the site, the former home of Jenkins Valves and Dominion Bridge factories, was completed at the end of 2017, Catania said.
“We have a clean site and we want to relaunch our next phases,” he said.
Work on infrastructure at the site, which began in the fall, is now expected to be finished within two to three weeks, he said.
Construction of the first 35 townhouses and 51 condos is set to start the first week of June.
He hopes to start construction of 174 condos by August, while construction of 56 duplexes is expected to start in September.
Those will be located in three 10-storey towers on top of 22,000 square feet of commercial space. Catania said he hopes to attract a pharmacy and other shops and services that will cater to people who live in the development.
Above the commercial space, on the second storey, the plan is to put a green roof with more than 14,000 square feet of garden space, Catania said.
That will allow residents to have gardens and provide produce for an on-site farm-to-table restaurant.
“When you’re in an urban environment and a highrise building, it’s hard to find a place to grow your own produce,” he said.
Catania said he wants to build 300 to 400 units a year on the site over 10 to 15 years. Eventually it’s expected to have 4,000 units — and increase the population of Lachine by a quarter.
The project will target a wide range of demographics.
“When you have 4,000 units in development, everything is our Target Market,” he said.