Mayor wants developers to embrace the new reality

Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue Mayor Paola Hawa wants developers who own land in the northern sector of the West Island town to embrace what she calls the new reality.

A trio of developers who make up Développement immobilier Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue (DISAB) have said they will sue the town if it doesn’t back down on its plan — called a PPU — for the region.

The plan focuses on commercial, industrial and residential development that will harmonize with the natural beauty of the area.

“The days of developers building the same way they did fifty years ago are over,” Hawa said Friday.

The town’s official statement, released last week, reads that since the developers bought the land in 2012, “new government policies have been introduced via the Metropolitan Land Use and Development Plan (know by its French acronym PMAD), which have in turn resulted in new development standards.

“As well, both the Supreme Court of Canada and the Quebec Court of Appeal have repeatedly recognized environmental protection as a fundamental value, a collective issue that can place restrictions on the right to property ownership.

“The courts also acknowledge that municipalities must play a front-line role in matter of environmental protection.”

DISAB spokesman Pierre Tessier said it is fair to say that a municipality can regulate environmental protection and that is why DISAB would protect natural environments on its property, including two designated wetlands and a habitat for brown snakes. But, “the municipality cannot do it to the detriment of the (land owners),” Tessier said.

The developers launched a campaign two weeks ago which said the town’s PPU would restrict their building plans to 15 per cent of the land they bought. They said the town would have to buy the land back if it wanted to conserve it, at an estimated cost of $20 million in compensations.