Rosemont bylaw intended to save 561 shoebox homes
Modest houses in Montreal borough were built around turn of 20th century
“There was an old woman who lived in a shoe ... box house.” — with apologies to Mother Goose
You’ve seen them around, perhapseven done a double take as you passed one by. They seem like mirages, picturesque relics from another era — which is precisely what they are.
Single-storey “shoebox” homes, built at the turn of the 20th century, dot the Montreal cityscape, squeezed between duplexes and triplexes.
But there are fewer than there used to be, and if the rampant condo craze and ever-surging real estate market had the last word, there would be fewer still. So Rosemont is doing something about it.
A bylaw protecting the borough of Rosemont—La-Petite-Patrie’s 561 shoebox houses was proposed this week and will come into effect in December, if all goes according to plan. Christine Gosselin couldn’t be happier.
“This legislation is groundbreaking in terms of recognizing the value of modest residential heritage,” said the Vieux-Rosemont city councillor and Projet Montréal executive committee member responsible for culture, heritage and design.
“It’s something the borough was thinking about doing and that we clearly need, given the rate of transformation of these houses. We needed clear guidelines. It’s one of the files I’ve been spearheading since I was elected.”
If the bylaw goes through, Rosemont would become the first borough to institute such protections, which state that unless shoebox homes are in utter disrepair, their basic structure must be preserved.
The goal, according to Gosselin, is to maintain a precious link to the history of Montreal and the generations that came before. She sees these homes as intrinsically tied to the heritage of Rosemont.
“They tell a wonderful story of how the borough developed, the history of employment, opportunities and industrialization of certain sectors, around the quarry and later the Angus Yards.
“People came to Montreal from the countryside and chose not to be renters but house owners; but they didn’t have the money, so they bought a plot and had a small modest house built on it that left enough room on the property to have vegetable gardens. The vast majority had beautiful, whimsical facades and became part of the landscape of the street.”
The aim of the bylaw is not to prevent people from modernizing their property, she said, but to work with owners to insure the inevitable updating of these homes is done with respect for the past.
“Our concern is to preserve what needs to be preserved, and to guide the transformation so that the story of the development of Rosemont contains the story of the first development of Rosemont.”
Adding a second storey to shoebox homes will be possible under the bylaw, with the condition that the upper level be set back at least one metre from the front of the building so as not to compete with the original facade.
There are shoebox homes all over Montreal, Gosselin noted, adding Rosemont hopes to lead by example in its move to protect them.
“There are some in Mile Ex, quite a few in Marie-Victorin. We thought we had more than anyone else, but Villeray—St-Michel— Parc-Extension has done a count and apparently they have significantly more.
“There used to be more in the central boroughs, but many have already been transformed by real estate developers. The Plateau had hundreds, now there are only 23 or 24. There are quite a few in Lachine, Ahuntsic, Tétreaultville.”
“The shoebox is a bit like a bagel,” said Dinu Bumbaru, of Heritage Montreal. “It’s not grand cuisine, but is it essential to Montreal? Yes.
“They ’re rather modest but some are done with a lot of attention to detail. You can see the craftsmanship behind it is very sincere. There should be some respect for that. At the same time, some were done very quickly and are hard to repair or renovate.”
Heritage Montreal requested a moratorium on the demolition of shoebox houses in January, and met with Gosselin at the time, but the group was not consulted regarding the bylaw.
“In principle it’s a good idea,” Bumbaru said, “but it has to be done while considering that these are homes, not just buildings on a list. It’s important in our mind to appreciate the more popular vernacular aspects of the city of Montreal, which is a city of neighbourhoods and artists, but also to support the owners and not just control them as if they were the enemy.”