Rocky start to consultations on Pointe-Claire Village

The city of Pointe-Claire’s efforts to consult the public on the future of the Pointe-Claire Village got off to a rocky start last Thursday when citizens began questioning the entire process before the first of four meetings had even begun.

The city brought in urban planning consultants to run the meeting at the Noël-Legault Community Centre, but facilitator Samir Admo of BC2, a Montreal urban planning firm, nearly lost the room when complaints began to fly that the round-table discussion was not the type of process some participants had expected, especially following recent citizen-led showdowns with city hall over the fate of the landmark Pioneer bar.

“This evening is not about the Pioneer bar,” Admo told the gathering, although he added, heritage and other related concerns could be addressed within the confines of the city’s Strategic Planning Program (SPP), which was the main focus of the evening ’s stated agenda.

“We’re here to have a conversation,” Admo reminded the crowd more than once.

But after looking at a distributed copy of the evening’s agenda, which began by asking participants to complete the following sentence on a Post-it note: “For me, the Pointe-Claire Village is (blank)”, village resident Larry Smyth expressed his outrage.

“This is a farce,” declared Smyth, who called out the city for staging what he said amounted to a “PR exercise” aimed at quelling public discontent over the city’s handling of the village file.

“What will the city do with our opinions?” asked another women, who tapped into the underlying current of cynicism that was palpable at the meeting.

Citizens were asked to submit their ideas and opinions on key topics from the city’s SPP and Village Code outlines, but Smyth and others found process lacking in sincerity.

“A conversation is, ‘What’s your opinion?’ If you’re telling me your answer has to fall in this box or that box, it’s no longer a conversation,” he said. “You’re being corralled into justifying somebody else’s position. It’s already done. It’s a f---ing joke.”

Claude Cousineau, the local city councillor, had to step away from the heated meeting after growing weary of griping from the “usual naysayers.”

Cousineau wants to see much-needed change to the village, but not massive redevelopment. “I’m more for a soft densification,” he said.

Resident Tracy McBean said she is hopeful the consultation will result in a revised vision for the village.

“I’m hoping the city really truly listens to us as citizens,” she said.

“I hope we can come to some sort of an agreement tonight. We don’t need this battle to keep going. But there are some really important issues on the table and they need to be addressed.”

While the Pioneer demolition and proposed condo project was the “big elephant in the room”, she said there are other issues facing the village.

“One of the biggest concerns is the loss of public parking, the future of Bourgeau Park — the park being taken over by parking and the loss green space — and all at the taxpayers’ dollar.”

By evening’s end, many citizens expressed a common desire to see a two-storey maximum on all future development in the village, preserve existing parking, preserve/restore existing heritage buildings, preserve/improve existing recreational facilities in Bourgeau Park, and no condos on Lakeshore Rd. and lower Cartier Ave.

Till Jan. 25, the public may also send comments on the main themes addressed during the public consultations on the city website: Pointe-Claire, It’s Who We Are.