Police Station 5 is headed for a new home
Need for more space has Pointe-Claire and Montreal collaborating on move
Pointe-Claire, Dorval and ÎleDorval are getting a new Station 5 neighbourhood police station. The project is in its preliminary stage.
Last week, Pointe-Claire city council approved a call for tenders for professional services to do the feasibility studies necessary when a project such as this is given the green light.
Montreal and Pointe-Claire are collaborating on the project.
“The idea is to keep the station in Pointe-Claire,” Pointe-Claire Mayor John Belvedere said.
Station 5 is located on a parcel of land that houses the Pointe-Claire Public Library, Pointe-Claire City Hall, Pointe-Claire Public Security and Service de Sécurité Incendie de Montréal’s Fire Station 55.
“(The police) need more space,” Belvedere said. “Right now they are sharing with Pointe-Claire public security, and public security needs more space, too.”
Station 5 commander Marc-André Dorion oversees a staff of 73 officers and civilian employees. He confirmed to a reporter that space is tight and that he is contributing to the conversation with Montreal and Pointe-Claire about what the future of Station 5 might look like. He said no new staff would be hired.
Belvedere said Montreal asked Pointe-Claire to handle the call for tenders.
“A lot has to be evaluated,” Belvedere said. “How much land is needed? Where is the ideal location? Then the soil has to be tested for contaminants. How much will it all cost?”
Belvedere said the plan is for Pointe-Claire to take over the space vacated by Station 5. He said there were no plans to relocate the fire station.
The Montreal Agglomeration Council collects money from all the demerged municipalities, including Pointe-Claire, Dorval and Île-Dorval, to pay for law enforcement and firefighting.
The agglo will foot the bill for the new station.
It’s too early to estimate when the project will break ground, but Belvedere said Montreal isn’t interested in dawdling.
“It’s something they want to move forward on quickly,” he said.
The Montreal Police Service was established in 1843 with 51 officers. Today ’s Service de police de la Ville de Montréal has four divisions — north, south, east and west — and 32 neighbourhood police stations operate within them.
The idea behind the neighbourhood stations was to make it easier for police officers to familiarize themselves with the particular law enforcement challenges of a sector and, because of the proximity of the stations, be more accessible to residents.
Before 1972, Dorval and PointeClaire staffed their own police forces, which were then amalgamated into an island-wide department as part of the Montreal Urban Community. The MUC then morphed into the Montreal agglomeration.
There are more than 6,000 police officers and civilian staff, making the SPVM the second-largest municipal police force in Canada.