Village merchants weigh in on city’s revitalization plans
Parking, attracting residents key issues for Pointe-Claire business owners
It was a sort of cercle vicieux. If you don’t have enough people, services go. Then people ask, why should I stay here?
Merchants from the Pointe-Claire Village attended a public consultation meeting last Wednesday to offer their opinions on the city’s Special Planning Program and how to best improve commercial life in the village.
David Epstein, owner of the Studio 77 restaurant on Lakeshore Rd., said parking has become a key concern for businesses along Lakeshore Road and adjacent streets.
“The parking lot next to the Pioneer, if is eliminated, I will not cry over,” he said. “It doesn’t bring business. If we can put one in Bourgeau Park, right in the back with a lot of nice pathways into Lakeshore, where people can walk through, that’s what really going to help the businesses.”
However, Pointe-Claire Mayor John Belvedere said last week that the city plans to shelve plans to overhaul Bourgeau Park for the time being, a master plan which included a large parking lot to be built at the north end of the park.
Epstein said he supported Belvedere’s election bid in 2017 because “I believe the village needs construction to get it moving. We need to fill in all those gaps we have now on Lakeshore Road.
“Those parking lots on Lakeshore are not needed,” he added. “They need to be moved to the back, to Bourgeau.”
Yvan Desrochers, who owns business property in the village, said the key to attracting more business is attracting more residents.
“They’re used to be more families, bigger families living here,” said Desrochers, whose family roots go back generations in the village.
“My father (Roger Desrochers) was a one of the founders of the (village) pool, with William Legault and the priest. At the time there were 350 families who joined. At the end, there were about 120 families. And families back then had a lot more kids, not like today.”
Desrochers said the village’s financial woes accelerated after key local businesses failed.
“This whole thing started when the village grocery store closed. A lot of stores were closing. The Caisse moved out, then the grocery store. You could almost see the tumbleweeds blowing in the street, like in the western villages. It was getting spooky.
“That was two elections ago and the politicians were saying, ‘Well, that’s the market. If it lives, it lives.’ But citizens started to ask: What are you doing to help business live because you take taxes from businesses?
“The city said, maybe we have to help promote commerce. That’s how the PPU started.”
Desrochers’ suggestion to spur business?
“We need to densify,” he said. “We’re lucky we have a pharmacy right now. It depends how many people live in the area to support it. If there is no market, well ….”
“There used to be a Banque Nationale, a SAQ, a post office, a Caisse Desjardins, three hardware stores, two or three gas stations. But slowly people stopped living here, so they weren’t buying here. It was a sort of cercle vicieux (a vicious circle). If you don’t have enough people, services go. Then people ask, why should I stay here? It’s a spiral down.”
While critics assail the Pioneer condo project as an aberration to the heritage and architectural scale of the village, Desrochers said, “Yes, but what is the cost of doing nothing?”
Nancy Kemp-Deakin of Deakin Realty says she’d like to see a reduction in business taxes. She said paying upwards of $25,000 of taxes per year is way too much. “The download for little businesses is crippling us.”
Kemp-Deakin added that “there isn’t a shortage of parking in the village, but the parking is badly managed.”
Another public consultation for merchants is set for Wed., Jan. 23 (6:30 to 9:30 p.m.) at the Noël-Legault Community Centre.