ST-LAZARE PUTS PARTIAL MORATORIUM ON DEVELOPMENT
In the past 20 years, Vaudreuil-Soulanges area has transformed from a region of farms, forests and horse trails, to a place populated by big box stores, playgrounds, cul-de-sacs and condos.
The boom has been a boon, in many ways, for the families who call this region home. For most of us, life is pretty good. We live serene in the green, far away from the hustle and bustle of the city — but we can still get to Costco in a jiffy whenever we feel the need to stock up on fancy cheese, supersized boxes of salad greens or diapers.
Yet a growing number of Off-Islanders are starting to wonder if it’s time to put the brakes on development. Many of us chose to live here not just because of the low taxes and relatively cheaper cost of housing, but also because of the beauty of our forests and fields. There’s a growing awareness that once the diggers roll in to clear land for development, there’s no way to recapture what is lost.
It isn’t just beauty at stake. There’s a growing worry in the region that overdevelopment in ecologically sensitive areas could have serious, long-term consequences.
And it isn’t just citizens who are starting to worry.
In St-Lazare, council has taken the unusual step of imposing a temporary moratorium on development in the western sector of town, which is the recharge zone for the aquifer that supplies water to the region. The moratorium is effective immediately, and covers a large swath of territory between Highway 40 and la Pinière, and Côte-St-Charles to Route 201.
Councillor Geneviève Lachance said the moratorium was a response to citizens’ concerns that the environmental impacts of proposed developments in the zone had not been adequately studied, particularly any potential impacts on the region’s water supply.
The moratorium is not permanent, but will buy time for staff and council to look at the science, as well as time to update the town’s conservation plan and relevant bylaws prior to approving any new development.
The vote at the Nov. 13 council meeting was not unanimous, but not for the reasons you might think. Councillor Pamela Tremblay and Mayor Robert Grimaudo opposed the motion because they said the moratorium should cover the whole territory, not just one sector. Grimaudo said the moratorium also should have had a more clearly defined end point.
An online petition launched by a St-Lazare citizen shortly after the vote to signal support for the moratorium gained more than 270 signatures by Monday. The petition asks council to maintain the moratorium until comprehensive studies have been done to identify sensitive ecological zones, and the town has amended its bylaws in alignment with updated and comprehensive conservation and development plans.
These are no small tasks, but it just makes sense to use this pause to put in the work to make sure development is done right (or as close to “right” as we imperfect humans can get).