Developers out of control

It's not only Toronto where developers are blowing away neighbourhoods to build questionable projects, my good friends (Chris Gobeil and Judith Bauer) in Montreal are experiencing it first hand. First they had one place:

Bauer: We had a 4,500-square-foot loft on Dowd St., just around the corner from St. Patrick's Basilica. It was huge, palatial.

Gobeil: But the place was bought by developers. They gave us the boot pretty quick...

So they bought an old house in Griffintown, Montreal...

We take a tour of the living quarters, which are spread across three upstairs apartments. The rooms are delightfully stocked with kitsch and collectibles, vivid paintings and charming antiques. The third-floor bedroom features slanting ceilings, exposed cedar beams and skylights that can be opened during the hot days of summer. We stop to talk in the main-floor conference room of Gobeil's accounting firm.

but...

Now what about this planned redevelopment of Griffintown? Did that come as a surprise?

Bauer: We always knew it would be developed. But we imagined that they would develop around us, and 20 years from now we'd be here with our nice walled garden. The idea that someone would come in and do such a big area all at once never occurred to us.

It looks like they plan to build a lot of clone high-rises, just like they did up the street.

Gobeil: Terraces Windsor. It's going to look a lot like that.

Very generic, no regard whatsoever for the history of the area. Whole streets may be erased by the looks of their plans.

Gobeil: It's too bad. There is history down here. So when we saw the developers recently, a guy with the company doing the consultations said to me, "Oh, we didn't think anybody lived on Ottawa Street!" I said, "Well, I live there. My neighbour lives there."

But they say it will be private development, and private companies can't expropriate, so what's going on?

Gobeil: Who knows? My notary tells me that's terra incognita. So until we get more details and the project gets approval, I don't think we're going to know.