Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue approves northern sector planning project
Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue has given a green thumbs up to the new planning project for its northern sector.
Ste-Anne city council voted unanimously Thursday to approve the project that provides a blueprint for future development in the more than 90 hectares of land north of Highway 40.
Mayor Paola Hawa said the unanimous vote is a signal the project enjoys widespread support.
“It’s testament as to how right this decision is,” she said.
The new project calls for the northern sector to strike a balance between residential, commercial industrial development, while maintaining the biodiversity and bucolic nature of vast green areas.
“We’d like to call this plan avant-gardiste and that we are looking to the future,” Hawa said.
“It’s about recognizing that we’re in 2017 and whatever plans we put in place has to be good for the next 25, 30 or 35 years. So we cannot go back to the old ways of doing things. We have to shake it up a little bit, we have to think ahead.”
Asked what will set the northern sector apart from other suburbs, Hawa said the community will be bicycle-friendly and less reliant on gas automobiles.
“What you are going to see is a lot of green space,” she added. “What you are going to see is a lot of mature trees; you’re going to see little pockets (of residential housing) that provide a sense of community, instead of urban sprawl. You’re going to see respect for the environment; you’re going to see a notion of local urban agriculture, because we know food safety is becoming more and more of an issue as we go forward.
“Every one of our residential developments is going to have a community garden, for example.
With a future REM light-rail station also planned for the area, Hawa said now is the time to plan and build a community that is less reliant on private automobiles.
The plan also calls for local bike paths and walking paths.
“You’re also going to see a reduced number of car parking spots,” Hawa said. “We’re demanding a certain number of bicycle racks for example, per square foot of development, recognizing that people are more and more into active mobility.
“You’ll see infrastructure that’s geared toward electric cars and sound bylaws to reduce noise. ”
Hawa said she hopes the project plan represents a new way of planning a modern Canadian suburb.
“I think what really stands out and makes it different is we did our homework first.
“For example, if we know our roads can’t take more than X number of cars, we’ll make sure whatever number of units we put in there reflects the constraints on the number of cars on that road.
“So in a sense we worked backwards, but to me that’s logical. That should always be your front end. Do your homework first,” she said.
Hawa said bulldozing the northern sector just to build more houses would have been a mistake.
“The biggest thing we did differently is you hear the old myths of, ‘You’ve got to develop, develop, develop’ to bring in tax revenue’. Well, the reality is when you bring in residential development, yes, you have a revenue influx but over time it dissipates. In economics 101, we call it diminishing returns.”