Baffled vendors kicked out of Phillips Square
When Lioudmila Zoueva bought the flower stand at Phillips Square in the spring of 2017, she thought the city of Montreal’s plans to redevelop a downtown stretch of SteCatherine St. W. would only bring improvements to her business.
Instead, Zoueva got a letter last November saying the city would not renew the lease that allows her and another Phillips Square vendor — Stéphanie Voghell, the seller of maple syrup treats — to rent the square’s two kiosks.
“It was promising — and now everything has failed,” Zoueva said.
Initially, the two were told they would be out by the end of 2017. The city later granted them an extension until Dec. 31 of this year.
The decision to remove them came after three years of public consultations in which citizens expressed the wish to “preserve the views” of the square’s Edward VII statue and nearby buildings, including the Bay, Birks and Christ and St. James churches, said city spokesperson Marilyne Laroche Corbeil.
Also brought up during consultations: the desire to create more green space and to reconnect “with the form and historic vocation of the Victorian square” via a garden and public space, she said.
The flower stand has been in Phillips Square for 30 years — the maple stand, 35.
Zoueva worked part time at the flower stand for three years while she earned a bachelor’s degree in art history. When it went up for sale, she decided to go for it because she loved working outside with the flowers — varieties like hibiscus, peace lilies and tiny potted succulents.
Now Zoueva, 24, is looking for a new location. “I thought I was settled, but now I have to restart everything,” she said.
As for Voghell, when asked what she’ll do with her business, she began to cry. “I’m not thinking about it,” she said.
Both are struggling to understand why they were told throughout the consultation process that they were in the city ’s plans — until one day, they weren’t.
The vendors’ story raises questions about public consultations conducted by the city of Montreal and its boroughs, including whether they are effectively communicating what the consultations are about, what the outcomes may be and how much the public’s input influences final decisions.
The city began consultations on redeveloping Ste-Catherine with a forum in the fall of 2014, then went on to conduct four public workshops and a survey on Phillips Square.
Individuals and organizations were encouraged to file briefs on the project.
A one-page summary of the 2015 survey — which garnered 584 responses — does not mention removing the vendors, but under the section “other comments” suggests to “better illuminate the square and the monument.”
Other suggestions noted: more chairs and tables, greenery and flowers, Wi-Fi and other amenities.
“We were consulted,” Zoueva said. She and Voghell remember attending meetings.
In fact, Voghell describes her communication with the city’s Ste-Catherine St. redevelopment project team, including her main contact, Lyne Marier, as “good.”
“In the meetings, our kiosks were there,” Voghell said of the consultations. “During the three years, we never thought that they wouldn’t renew our lease.”
In 2016, the city circulated a document describing a vision for Phillips Square in which the two kiosks would serve as “pillars of vitality.”
The document was drawn up “in light of all the information obtained during the consultations” until that point, the city told the Montreal Gazette.
The kiosk structures should be rebuilt in “noble materials” that will reflect the square’s “spirit of prestige,” the document read.
Running water and electricity hookups for the kiosks were mentioned. A photograph showed another flower stand, this one in Victoria Square, made of glass walls, with a cheerful red roof.
Zoueva remembers calling Marier right before buying the stand, for reassurance about where the two kiosks fit in.
She says Marier told her, “Yes, go look at this document, it’s really accurate. What you see in this document is what’s going to happen.”
When the first termination letter arrived last November, Zoueva says, she called Marier and left her a voicemail asking what had happened.
“I was really shocked,” Zoueva said. Marier did not return her call, she said.
When asked for comment, Marier redirected a reporter to speak with the city ’s media relations department.
The city responded, outlining that many steps were taken to consult the public, including requesting feedback online and in person. In the end, “all stakeholders agreed that the redevelopment of Phillips Square without permanent kiosks was preferable,” Laroche Corbeil said. The “desire to remove or restrict the kiosks to free up the view” played a role in the decision, she said.
The decision to remove the vendors was made under the Coderre administration, added Gabrielle Fontaine-Giroux, another city spokesperson.
André Poulin, executive director of Destination centre-ville, an association of downtown merchants, participated in the process.
He said the issue of removing the two vendors never came up in the discussions he was part of, but he agrees with the decision to make them leave.
“Everything that the vendors sell is available” at other downtown businesses, he said.
The main reason he’s opposed to them is that they enjoy “special conditions,” while brick-and-mortar businesses pay taxes, insurance and employee salaries, Poulin said.
“The big question mark” that remains, according to Meghan Joy, an assistant professor of political science at Concordia University, is how governments turn public consultations into decisions.
“There is this tendency of, ‘We’ve already made the decision, we need to check this box of public approval and then we’ll go ahead with it,’ ” she said.
It’s important that governments establish and follow criteria for carrying out consultations, Joy said. That includes steps like distributing information on the content of the consultations in advance, sending out summaries of participants’ comments, taking time to make the decision after the consultations and staying in touch with the public afterward. All of that takes money and time, Joy said.
When it’s done poorly, “what some scholars have said is that it could actually create more apathy: ‘I tried, I went, I got excited and nothing. I’m never going again,’ ” she said.
As for Zoueva, the entire process has left her disillusioned.
Last November, she and Voghell hung up “Sauvons les Marchés Square Phillips” flyers and started a petition, addressing it to the city of Montreal and gathering signatures from customers and passersby.
Zoueva brought the petition to a municipal office to make sure it would be considered valid. She says the city took about three weeks to give her their answer. Meanwhile, she kept collecting signatures.
Then the city’s response came: The vendors would need to address the petition to the borough of Ville-Marie, and only people who live in the borough could sign it. The more than 2,500 signatures the vendors say they had collected were unusable.
“Yes, we can do another petition, but I’m going to put all my effort into that and after, it’s not going to change anything,” said Zoueva.
The Corporation de gestion des marchés publics de Montréal, which leases the kiosks, said it is working to find new locations for Zoueva and Voghell.
“This is our life,” Voghell said. “We might be moved to somewhere else, but we’ll never find what we have here, after 35 years on this corner.”