The Montagne verte cooperative has 136 units in a single building. A project that has been going for 11 years, but whose construction has just been authorized by the City of Montreal.
The 14-storey building will be built right in the city center, just behind the Bell Center, at the intersection of the streets of La Montagne and Saint-Jacques.
There are certainly larger cooperatives. For example, that of Cloverdale Village, in the Pierrefonds-Roxboro borough, has 866 housing units in about fifty buildings built over a 20-year period.
A project in a single building, like the Montagne verte cooperative, is unheard of in Montreal.
The project changed location twice before reaching a site in the City of Montreal that adjoins a ramp off the Ville-Marie tunnel.
As a result, a lot of approvals from the Department of Transport and the City have been required because there is a large water pipeline nearby.
This explains in part the delays, explains the general director of the CDH Group, Alain Tassé, while emphasizing that this type of project always takes several years to materialize.
There are still some steps to be taken at the municipal planning committee, but the first shovel should be next winter. “If all goes well, February or March 2019. In this corner. The main thing is over, “says Tassé.
The cooperative’s construction budget is $19 million. Half comes from grants, mainly from the AccèsLogis program. The other half will come from a mortgage which will then be paid by the rents of the members of the coop.
Financing social housing is always a challenge in Quebec. The standards require that buildings have bedrooms that are often larger than what is built in the private sector. The buildings must also comply with NovoClimat standards, which the private sector is not obliged to do.
The scarcity of land in Montreal is also an important issue. For example, the Montagne verte cooperative will occupy all the land on which it will be built. There will be no court.
To compensate for this lack of space, the project architect, Douglas Alford, wanted to build a terrace on the roof of the building, but was told that it was not acceptable.
