City wants to borrow nearly $20 million for infrastructure projects

The City of Pointe-Claire is looking to borrow nearly $20 million to build or upgrade everything from green space to sidewalks to sewers.

At the Oct. 2 regular council meeting, council voted in favour of five draft by-laws, each approving the city to borrow millions of dollars for various infrastructure and other projects. The loans have a combined value of $19,020,000.

One of these loans, with a value of over $1.6 million, would be used for “parks, green spaces, shoreline, bike paths and sports fields,” according to the notice of motion, while another loan of about $3.7 million will go towards municipal buildings.

Borrowing large sums of money for infrastructure in the fall is nothing new for the city; in November 2023 the city filed several draft bylaws for loans totalling nearly $26 million.

Council will vote to approve these borrowing by-laws at a later date.

Council, mayor still split over proposed housing project

A proposed 13-storey housing development continues to work its way through the approval process, but Pointe-Claire’s mayor and council remain at odds over the project.

Last month, council approved four items aimed at moving along the project, which would be built at Labrosse and Saint-Jean and would include 367 dwellings and nearly as many parking spaces.

At this month’s meeting, Councillor Eric Stork, who supports the development, used his opening statement to present statistics showing that a smaller development, such as a six-storey building or a series of triplexes, built on that lot wouldn’t be financially feasible.

“As elected officials, we have a moral responsibility to properly research and do appropriate due diligence, and not just make shallow comments that are misleading in nature and potentially void of common sense,” he said.

The Pointe-Claire Record requested these statistics from Stork but did not receive a response in time for publication.

In response, Mayor Tim Thomas, who does not support the project, argued there was not a simple correlation between building new homes and the cost of rent. “No matter how you spin the economics, no matter how it goes, affordability seems to be a real challenge, and I don’t think that going higher or building more and making it more profitable for the developer will solve that crisis of affordability,” he said.

Councillor wants to force evaluation of Fairview Forest

The monetary value of the Fairview Forest is currently unknown, and one councillor wants to compel the city to find an answer.

Should the City of Pointe-Claire want to purchase the privately owned Fairview Forest, it’s not clear how much money they would need to pay for it, according to the mayor. During question period, one resident asked Mayor Tim Thomas how much it would cost to buy the forest. But Thomas said an evaluation has not been done on the value of the greenspace.

In response to the back-and-forth, Councillor Eric Stork said he was preparing a motion that, if approved, would force an evaluation of the greenspace.

“We need a proper, independent evaluation to know where we stand so we can make decisions, and I believe this is pretty much a referendum question,” he said. “It can’t be a group for or against development, or for or against the Fairview Forest. It’s a process that needs to be done, and I strongly would support that.”

By Ian Down, Journalist