Month: June 2017

 

When mayor Ed Prévost told a Global reporter Hudson was looking at ways to get out of the Montreal Metropolitan Community and its master development plan, Prévost showed he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. (Pythonesque, June 6)

For Hudson to secede from the MMC and its new public transit creation, the Réseau de transport métropolitain, Hudson would have to prove that fewer than 7% of Hudson’s total population work somewhere else in the MMC. The town would have to drop out of the CIT la Presqu-île, serve notice to the Agence Métropolitain de transport it no longer wanted train service and convince Transport Canada it’s in the community’s interest to force the AMT to lift the existing tracks and abandon the right of way.

What I find far more disturbing is Prévost’s lack of vision, a shortcoming shared by far too many Hudson residents.

Accompany me on this rail commute into the future to see what I’m seeing:

It’s 2025. The Réseau électrique métropolitain (REM), an integrated 67-km public transit network linking downtown Montréal, the South Shore, the West Island, the North Shore (Laval and Deux-Montagnes) and the airport through an automated electric light rail transit (LRT) system, has been running for five years. The old AMT trains de banlieu, which includes the Vaudreuil/Hudson line, are still running but ridership is dropping because the LRT is so much faster and more efficient. It’s easier to drive to the Ste. Anne LRT station.

Driving into town has become an ordeal not even the most dedicated motorist looks forward to. The average peak drive commute in and out of downtown Montreal takes over 100 minutes. Tolls on bridges and highways into the city, along with reserved lanes for taxis, buses and car-poolers discourage single-driver vehicles. If you’re driving into the city without a transponder and a downtown parking pass, be prepared to fork out $50.

The big news today is the grand opening of the double LRT line in the centre of the new Ile aux Tourtes bridge. This line is an extension of the original LRT system which opened in 2020. At Vaudreuil station it splits, with one branch continuing southwest to serve the booming southern tier municipalities of Les Cèdres, Côteau du lac and Les Coteaux. The other branch continues west to the new Hudson station. Eventually, it may continue on to Ottawa.

Yesterday was the last day riders caught the 7 a.m. diesel-powered train at the old Hudson station. Much fanfare and a few tears greeted the historic occasion. Hudson residents came close to giving up their train service until a visionary mayor and council realized they had the support of St. Lazare residents for a station closer and more convenient than Vaudreuil.

Plans for a central public transit hub in Hudson’s east end go back to the start of the millennium. While Liberal appointee Joël Gauthier headed the Agence métropolitain de transport, a map on his office wall showing a train/shuttlebus terminal located near where Montée Manson crosses the former Canadian Pacific right of way (ROW).

Vaudreuil-Dorion mayor Guy Pilon lobbied long and hard to make Vaudreuil the end of the off-island line, but the explosive population growth along the county’s southern tier and rush-hour congestion on Highway 20 convinced REM planners to extend the line southwest.

Here we are at Hudson’s new station. It’s on a beautiful road that runs through farmland from the foot of Bédard to the Como Ferry. The provincial transport ministry paid for it because the ferry has been declared an integral part of the highway network and someone had to put an end to the ridiculous traffic jams on Bellevue and Main Road. Benoît Laporte, on whose land the road is located, backed the project because Quebec allowed him to subdivide his farmland into 10 to 20-acre farmettes, a godsend for Hudson’s booming micro-agricultural industries.

Hudson has big plans for the original Canadian Pacific right of way between Montée Manson and the old station. Transport Canada and the RTM must approve the town’s request to abandon the line, lift the rails and ties and grant the town a lease or sell it outright. The big debate is whether to turn it into an aerobic corridor for cyclists, walkers, runners, skaters and skiers or create a new east-west route into the centre of town to take traffic off Main Road and Chemin de l’Anse.

Ahh, here’s the train now. It’ll take us less than an hour to downtown. The RTM offers recharging stations for electric cars, so let’s grab that parking spot, plug in and climb aboard.

This is fiction based on fact. The Caisse de dépot et de placement announced June 15 that the Trudeau government has committed to a 24.5% share of the $6.04B REM project. Quebec has already poneyed up its $1.283B share. The Caisse holds control with 51% of the project. It is to be a public-private partnership and the call for tenders to companies and consortia was issued in February. It is hoped to have trains running by the end of 2020.

The Ile aux Tourtes connection comes from the May 2, 2017 issue of Canadian Consulting Engineer which reported that a engineering consortium headed by consultants exp, Stantec and CIMA+ had been awarded the contract “to plan work on the existing [Ile aux Tourtes Bridge] structures over a five-year period to maintain traffic safety until the 50-year-old bridge is fully replaced over a 10-year horizon.”

The contract, awarded by the Ministère des Transports, Mobilité durable et Électrification des transports, will keep the crumbling structure open to some 85,000 vehicles a day while the new bridge is built alongside. Given the timelines, it appears the MTQ hopes to open the new bridge around 2025.

I asked former Hudson councillor Tom Birch whether he thought the MTQ would include an LRT line in the design for the new span. “They’d be stupid not to,” Birch said.

He comes at this from a unique position. Until 2008, he served as Mayor Elizabeth Corker’s councillor in charge of the infrastructure and public transport files. He’s now the vice-president for funds and technology with the Caisse’s Quebec Private Equity team, with net assets of $270B and a yield that averaged 10.2% over the last five years. [Birch has no connection with CDPQ Infra, the unit overseeing the REM project; the Caisse has stressed the information firewall separating the Infra project from its private and public equity, fixed income, real estate, infrastructure and Quebec investment teams.]

As councillor, Birch swung Hudson’s support behind the CIT La Presqu’île when the regional shuttle bus service was just getting going. He lobbied hard for a second weekday train to and from Hudson, noting it would have cost the town $14,000 a year compared to the $330,000 it would cost Vaudreuil-Dorion.

He worked with former St. Lazare mayor Pierre Kary to counter Vaudreuil-Dorion mayor Guy Pilon’s lobbying efforts to make Vaudreuil the last stop on the line with a proposal to build a new Hudson train station at the foot of Bédard, offering St. Lazare commuters a convenient alternative to having to drive to Vaudreuil or Hudson.

Birch says watching the town not being proactive on the public transportation file for the last eight years has driven him crazy. He predicts the LRT network is “seven or eight years out of the CIT” and will likely be extended south and west to Les Cèdres.

Birch doesn’t think current transit alternatives offer commuters sufficient convenience to abandon their cars. The A40 Express bus takes 40 minutes to deliver you to the Côte Vertu Metro, from where you’ll spend another half hour on the subway.

Birch’s parting shot: if Hudson had followed through with a plan for a new east-end station, there would have been a lot less incentive at the MMC and MRC levels to create a transport-oriented development in a densified downtown Hudson. The TOD would have been moved to a far more logical location along that stretch of Harwood between Bédard and the Galeries Hudson exit off the 40.

In Vaudreuil-Dorion.

The Local Journal didn’t want to be accused of leaking the story of how the Town of Hudson is taking lawyer and Hudson resident Veronique Fischer to the Barreau du Québec, alleging ethical breaches.

So it ran a story about the town’s shock and dismay that somebody sent a photocopy of the town’s Barreau beef against Fischer to the Journal reporter’s home.

The Journal attempted to claim the high road by noting that it withheld Fischer’s name and the details of the town’s complaint against the tax activist. But it was fooling no one, certainly not in a small town where everybody and his mother’s dog has heard Fischer’s name bandied about in connection with a number of files, including the withdrawal of the $1.5M repaving bylaw and the recent near-death experience of the $555,000 we’re-not-sure-what-it’s-for loan bylaw.

In an exclusive interview with thousandlashes.ca, a fly on a Hudson town hall wall has alleged the photocopy was sent by the town. I’ve agreed to keep the fly’s identity confidential due to fear of reprisals.

“There were just the two of them,” she said.” “It was after hours and everyone else had gone home. I’m paraphrasing here because my memory isn’t perfect, but they’re agreeing it’s a shame there’s no legal way to make the town’s complaint to the Barreau public. Such a magnificent document, so damning. They figure they can discredit her in her community and cause her financial embarrassment. They jawbone for a while before they hit on the idea of an anonymous leak. Leave it to me, says one of them. You will need plausible deniability. Then they leave.”

If proven, Ms. Fly’s allegation would place the town in a serious breach of Barreau ethics. Because the legal profession is self-regulating, the Barreau receives complaints and builds the file before placing it before the syndic, the tribunal which will determine the veracity of the complaint and possible sanctions.

In itself, the town’s decision to take Fischer to the Barreau is logical and understandable. As I posted in my blog Lawyer vs. Lawyer (thousandlashes.ca, April 21/17), Hudson’s current administration makes no secret of its determination to silence what it considers nuisance critics:

…I sat down with the DG for a 45-minute chat about how the town proposes to silence persistent critics without being accused of stifling free speech.

Roy began by making it clear the town would seek the means to neutralize residents who make it their business to monitor the decisions and practices of municipal administrations and have the know-how to research documents and the means to take their findings to provincial authorities.

Fischer has been highly effective in her ability to pry embarrassing and potentially damaging information loose through the use of Access to Information requests – so effective, the town asked the commission responsible for policing AI requests to impose a freeze until after the Nov. 5 municipal elections.

The core of the town’s Barreau complaint against Fischer is whether she violated the Barreau’s guidelines by conflating her legal responsibilities with her activities as a citizen activist. I know other lawyers who have become enmeshed in similar disputes because of their roles in civic matters. The Barreau seems to decide these matters on a case-by-case basis.

It’s by making this case public – if it is indeed responsible for the leak – that the town has committed a breach of ethics that would leave it open to possible civil action. Moreover, if it can be proven a Barreau member played any part in the breach, he or she would also be liable to sanctions.

It’s possible Fischer or someone close to her leaked the document to discredit the town’s action of taking her to the Barreau, but I tend to dismiss that possibility. No lawyer wants to be taken before the Barreau. It represents time, incurs out-of-pocket expense and could result in sanctions. Leaking the complaint does nothing to halt the town’s action.

Could it be someone with access to the file who thought leaking the report would help Fischer’s cause? Again, I can’t see that. Barreau proceedings are closed. Public opinion plays no role.

…which brings me back to Ms. Fly’s allegation. If true, it wasn’t enough for the town to launch Barreau procedures against Fischer. They’re a confidential administrative process and the results are seldom made public. My hunch: the administration wanted this to be tried simultaneously in the court of public opinion to make a public example of their vexatious critic.

Although invitations were emailed to some 100 residents and members of council, less than two dozen people showed up for what was to have been the founding meeting of a Hudson resident’s association at St Mary’s Hall last evening. When the gathering broke up some two hours later, there was no agreement on the role of such an organization or whether another meeting would move the project forward.

Inspiration for the formation of a Hudson citizens’ group was to have come from the presence of Paul Marriott, president of the Westmount Municipal Association. Founded in 1908 to promote sound civic administration, the WMA is a volunteer organization which operates as a non-partisan community link between citizens and City Hall in dealing with traffic, parking and zoning problems. Membership, currently around 200, has risen as high as 3,000 in a city with a population of roughly 20,000.

Membership increases as a function of what’s happening in Westmount, Marriott explained. “People tend to focus on single-issue projects.” Fifteen years ago, the unifying issue was forced mergers and demerger referendums. Today, the WMA is seeking a voice in the impact of the MUHC superhospital on the city.

Marriott is a council regular, asking questions on behalf of WMA members, demanding answers and the supporting documentation. Notwithstanding the WMA’s long history with the city, cooperation isn’t automatic. Who decides what issues the WMA tackles? Members meet monthly and try to work a month ahead, not just for the next council meeting. The association posts everything, including town documentation.

Once the Q&A with Marriott had run its course, moderator Chloe Hutchison moved the meeting to a group membership discussion. In her invitation, she had emphasized the movement’s non-partisan role “in bringing focus to the community’s day-to-day needs and interests, to serve as a springboard where political platforms are discussed and shaped with respect to public long-term values.”

Hutchison wondered what it would take to grow local participation in municipal affairs where citizens who ask hard questions at council meetings are seen as troublemakers.
Could a citizen’s group stimulate meaningful communication with council members? Was there any possibility of citizen input in integrating sustainable measures in Town Planning regulations? Is it reasonable to ask for monthly updates on the Town’s actions relating to finance, infrastructure and planning?

She noted that public participation tools exist, such as citizen advisory committees mandated annually by the municipal councils. “These committees are important players in keeping the balance between personal interest, impact and benefits of development opportunities and the long-term public value.”

The ensuing discussion failed to produce the consensus needed to create a citizen’s advocacy movement. Instead, it showed that any grouping would have to be a coalition of single-issue advocates, most of them opposed to something – greenspace protection, anti-densification, anti-development. Some saw no way past the current level of confrontation. Others preferred the image of a glorified chat group centred on non-confrontational negotiating practices.

Faced with a scenario of squabbling factions and no persuasive unifying vision, people left.

“I guess I’m just at the point of giving up,” said one Hudson greenspace activist. “It’s like my neighbour […] said last night, “where are the 5,150 other people in Hudson?”  Am I just a shit disturber? Should I just stay home, drink wine and watch the sunset?”

Not everyone thought it was a wasted evening.

“It shows every volunteer organization needs a spark plug,” said one participant. “You don’t fire people up with calls for balance and non-partisanship when this administration is practising exactly the opposite.”

Others were surprised to learn that even the WMA has to fight to be heard and informed. “There may not be any political value in having an association, but there’s definitely a moral value,” said one young attendee. “The most surprising? For me, it was hearing that it’s not just here in Hudson.”

• • •

Does Hudson need a citizen’s advocacy group? Yes, say those who don’t feel comfortable with how the current administration makes decisions that will affect residents without their knowledge or consent. Take the Villa Wyman project that will house two dozen seniors who need assisted care. It’s a crucial project in the wrong location, being engineered to solve Wyman’s financial problems. Those who have seen family and friends forced to leave their homes for a facility on the West Island know the injustice of this, but one injustice doesn’t justify another. A competent urban planner knows there won’t be enough parking on the current site for churchgoers, employees and visitors. Why is it wrong to ask hard questions, especially in light of Hudson’s sorry track record in dealing with previous development projects?

The argument against the creation of an independent non-partisan citizens’ movement? I’ll leave that to those who place their faith in Hudson’s voting public and bureaucratic infallibility.

Is it the end of the road for a Hudson citizens’ advocacy group? At the risk of disappointing the gloaters, I don’t think so. Several promising initiatives emerged from last night’s exercise. If they take off, they will transform the Nov. 5 municipal elections.

The truth is that most people don’t like questioning authority, especially in a small town where nobody wants to be the target of ridicule. We pay a social price for our fear of being seen on the wrong side of whatever it is. So, to cover up our shame and complicity, we go to ridiculous lengths to rationalize our disengagement and cheerlead the poor leadership choices we make.

The price of democracy is eternal vigilance. If eternal vigilance includes filing access to information requests and asking questions of our elected and appointed officials, so be it. I’m suspicious of anyone who has a problem with it.

 

 

Hudson’s June council meeting was so weird, I was looking for Monty Python characters somewhere in the audience.

Pro-mayor Natalie Best, subbing for the mayor, opened the meeting by reading a comment from Prévost, slamming residents for circulating fake news and denouncing candidates for using public meetings to campaign for November’s municipal elections and dupe their fellow citizens.

The nearly three-hour session was highlighted by incoherent retractions of previous comments and resolutions modified on the fly. Among the revisions: a bylaw clearing the way for construction of Villa Wyman, an assisted-care seniors’ residence next to Wyman Memorial United Church, will now be subjected to a June 20 public consultation, possible registry and referendum. The controversial proposal to move Wyman and its parking lot into a commercial zone (C-27) will not, since it is now part of the town’s compliance bylaws.

The packed agenda was book-ended by question periods comprised mainly of rants against the adoption of bylaws 688, 689 and 690. These bring the town’s master development and land use plan into compliance with those of the Montreal Metropolitan Community (MMC) and the Vaudreuil-Soulanges MRC. Critics charge the town with using them as the pretext to permit uncontested development.

The evening ended with the revelation that the absent Mayor Ed Prévost had bushwhacked his own council with a Trump-like blurt that raises serious questions about the legitimacy of his administration’s policy regarding densification of the town core. It also sparked a surreal exchange (“YOUR mayor! No, he’s YOUR mayor!”).

The issue: without consultation with this or previous town administrations, the MMC and MRC classified Hudson’s downtown core as a transport-oriented development, or TOD, on the basis of the single commuter train to and from Montreal on non-holiday weekday mornings and evenings and a shuttlebus service to Vaudreuil and West Island destinations.

Unlike previous administrations, this council has voiced no resistance to the imposition of the CMM/MRC guidelines despite the urging of residents who see it as a threat to Hudson’s small-town heritage. Council’s mantra: Compliance won’t change Hudson’s character.

The administration’s main argument in support of compliance: Hudson will have a stronger say in modifying or reversing CMM/MRC policy once it complies; until then, development projects are stalled. The sooner, the better.

The opposition sees a hidden agenda in the administration’s haste to pass the compliance bylaws: it allows the town to use the harmonized land-use and development regulations to ram through controversial projects. Over the past several weeks, council members and administrators have made comments since retracted or qualified, such as Hudson being the only MRC municipality not to have complied. (Five of the 11 MRC members in the CMM have not done so).

Delay supporters point to alternatives, such as moving the TOD circle east to a proposed intermodal passenger terminal located in the vicinity of where Como’s Montée Manson crosses the AMT right of way (ROW). Hudson would have its TOD and the possibility of a lateral access road to relieve Bellevue and Main Road of the traffic to and from the Oka ferry. Rail commuters living in St. Lazare and Vaudreuil-Dorion would have faster, easier access to a public transit facility with plenty of parking. More users would mean more trains.

Closure of the ROW would allow Hudson to plan and lobby for a non-motorized usage corridor and/or east-west road on the former ROW between Montée Manson and the centre of town. Either way, cyclists and pedestrians would have a safe alternative to having to share Hudson’s narrow streets.

The community centre was packed with a vocal crowd either for or against compliance, which commits the town to tripling the density of a one-kilometre semicircle around the railway station.

The sports-bar atmosphere was reinforced with the presence of two public security agents at the doors. The anti-compliance fans applauded whenever one of their stars scored on the council and walked out en masse when councillors voted to adopt the compliance bylaws.

Mayor Ed’s shocker came near the end of the second question period, when Charleswood resident Louise Craig asked when the town was proposing to close the railway station. Councillors clearly had no idea what she was referring to until she explained that the mayor was quoted in a June 1 Global News story on their Montreal morning show.
Billy Shields quotes Prévost saying that with a daily ridership of less than 50 people the town’s $250,000 bill is “preposterous.”

Shields’s story continues: “With the reformulation of the commuter rail agency into a new outfit dubbed the RTM [Réseau de transport métropolitain], Prevost said the town is thinking of closing its train station.”

Pro-mayor Best, who represents the town on the regional transit file, denied any knowledge of discussions to pull out of the RTM. (I can find no legal precedent for any CMM municipality pulling out of the RTM or its predecessor, the Agence métropolitaine de transport.)

I can think of three possibilities. One, Global misquoted Prévost and the mayor will demand a retraction. Two, Prévost doesn’t share with his council, which isn’t healthy. Three, the folks at the front of the room are excellent poker players and the conspiracy theorists were right when they saw the TOD as the pretext to densify.

Whatever, it sparked a lighthearted moment, or maybe it’s just me after too many evenings spent in consultations. Craig used the term “YOUR mayor” when referring to Prévost. “He’s YOUR mayor,” a council member shot back. Hmm. No love there.

New treasurer
Hudson has a new treasurer, Claudia Ouellette, a no-nonsense fiscalist who spent the past five years with a software provider for Quebec municipalities. Prior to that, she worked in finance departments in Côte St. Luc, Otterburn Park and elsewhere. Her aim is to get Hudson’s ledgers in order after a revolving door of treasurers.

Salaries to be made public
Town clerk Cassandra Comin Bergonzi reassured Eva McCartney the town will be releasing the salaries of non-unionized town employees as soon as possible. (Union wage scales are already public.) McCartney sharply questioned council in the wake of allegations the town was deliberately stalling their release. Comin Bergonzi blamed the volume of access to information requests for the delay.

Conservation plan tabled
The town’s conservation plan, an essential component of the land use compliance process, was tabled after getting the province’s approval. Residents were assured it will be posted on the town’s website, although the version currently posted dates back to last July. According to provincial regulation, it requires another public consultation and final adoption by council.

Another 60 grand

Hudson taxpayers peeled off another 60 grand for Dunton Rainville, the town’s legalists of choice. It sparked another who-are-we-suing-now query and assurances the town is down to maybe six, seven or eight files. But hey, who’s counting?

Wooing the Coast Guard

The Canadian Coast Guard wants to locate a high-speed search and rescue boat and shore facility somewhere on the Lake of Two Mountains, but has yet to make a final decision. The town says the Hudson Fire Department’s 21-foot rigid inflatable is too small  to fill a patrol-boat mission and an expanded, rebuilt town wharf would be an ideal location for a larger craft. A number of other municipalities on the lake are in the competition, town director-general Jean-Pierre Roy said.

As I predicted they would, Hudson’s Prévost administration has discovered a way out of holding referendums on zoning projects the town perceives as beneficial. How this council did it — and how it justified removing the right to subject zoning changes to approval by referendum at the May 30 public consult on the proposed assisted-care seniors’ residence in the Wyman United Church parking lot— is an interesting exercise in bureaucratic manipulation.

(NOTE: Revised draft bylaw 692.1 tabled at the outset of the June 5 council meeting rezones lot #5 970 081 exclusively for a seniors’ residence and  makes it subject to a public consultation June 20. The designation is therefore subject to citizen approval by referendum. Bylaw 691 removing Wyman Memorial United Church from Zone P-57 and adding it to Zone C-27 is a change to the town’s master plan and is therefore not subject to approval by referendum.

Before we get into that, something equally interesting emerged at the meeting. This was Daren Legault’s impassioned plea on behalf of the project. Legault’s argument: we’ve all seen how NIMBYism has blocked progress in Hudson. The town needs an assisted-living facility for seniors, so we should hold our noses and get it built.

It’s a tempting argument and I’ve been worrying at it since Tuesday evening’s consultation. Does the end justify the means? Or is this the Trojan Horse that will be used to re-engineer Hudson without the need to consult residents? It may be the right thing to do in this case, but is it ethical to place potentially disruptive projects like Sandy Beach (250 doors) two Cameron residential developments (36 doors) and a possible 40-unit densification east of Mount Pleasant beyond approval by referendum?

And the corollary: what projects should go to referendum and which should be exempt? Why should Daniel Rodrigue’s Mayfair townhouse project have gone to register (where the rezoning was pulled) while this project won’t?

Both consultations on May 23 and May 30 fulfilled the municipal affairs ministry’s legal requirements but left residents feeling cheated of a voice in the process. Worse, the administration failed to explain clearly what they were proposing to do and why. The way the truth emerged left residents feeling they were being hoodwinked.

There’s general agreement Hudson desperately needs an assisted care facility. If Hudson’s churches see fit to make eldercare part of their social mission, good. St. Thomas and St. James both own excellent sites. But Wyman’s site is far from ideal. Even its proponents agree it’s small for a three-storey structure 144 by 100 feet where parking and traffic will be an issue. Neighbours fear there won’t be enough trees left to provide a screen, especially in light of the town’s failure to deliver on past promises. They’re urging the promoters to move the project to the east side of Wyman, at the corner of Main and Selkirk.

Christine Redfern, whose house will be next door to the proposed facility, lived through this before when the town built the new firehall and extended the public works yard to her property line. She’s still giving me grief for failing to follow up on the town’s promises to mitigate the effects by building something similar to the big wooden noise barrier off Chemin St-Louis in St. Lazare.

“Blocks the view, blocks noise + has lovely plants growing up around it — about 10 different local varieties of shrubs, vines and trees have been planted,” she wrote me. “Then did you ever look at the fence you pushed for at the public works yard? The nice side facing inwards, not one tree planted and all winter long big trucks parked 6 feet from the neighbouring property where the town promised 21 feet of green space?”

Redfern says she’s had multiple meetings since with the town, with landscapers, with councillors and has sent some two dozen follow-up emails. “I always get a positive response, no action.”

Without the possibility of a referendum to leverage negotiations, Villa Wyman’s neighbours have one option. Once bylaws 691/692 are adopted at next Monday’s monthly council meeting, citizens have 30 days to collect five signatures and file a request with the Municipal Affairs Commission to determine whether the bylaws conform with the town’s planning program.

Then there’s the trust issue. The zoning change (call it what it is) moves Wyman and its parking lot, including the proposed site from P-57, the zone currently occupied by the church, firehall, public works and the town-owned 539 and 541 Main and into C-27, a commercial/residential zone with fewer restrictions. Why move the site into a commercial zone? Twice before, Hudson has been screwed by developers who promised to build assisted-care facilities if the town agreed to zoning changes. Kilteevan and R-55 are legacies of those broken promises. If the Villa Wyman project falls through, nothing prevents the owner from selling it to a developer for any multi-unit residential project.

Or for that matter, the United Church from selling Wyman Memorial.

…which brings us to the compliance loophole. Residents got a sneak peek at the May 23 public consultation for Bylaws 688, 689 and 690, the land use and density resolutions bringing the town’s planning process in line with those of the Montreal Metropolitan Community (CMM) and Vaudreuil-Soulanges MRC. Many of those attending that first meeting were still under the illusion that Hudson could dodge the MMC/MRC densification bullet on the basis of a municipal resolution asking to be excluded.

They were to learn this administration had no such intention.

“One thing you all must remember,” pro-mayor Deborah Woodhead said as she called the consultation to order, once the town brings its planning program into compliance with Vaudreuil-Soulanges MRC’s revised land use plan, “we will be in a much better position…we’re on the outside now. Once we’re on the inside we can discuss things like the TOD.”

Over the next two hours, the council and administrators attempted to convince residents transport-oriented development (TOD) is just a pretext. By agreeing to TOD-level densities in Hudson’s downtown core, the administration claims it will be able to exempt the rest of the community from MMC/MRC densification guidelines.

“They told us it would be possible after we were in compliance […] after the compliance, we will be able to regress [to lower average densities],” Hudson’s director-general Jean-Pierre Roy told residents.

Confusion continued into the May 30 meeting, where town clerk Cassandra Comin Bergonzi explained how the town could enact zoning changes without going through the usual procedures. Council, she said with a straight face, has the discretion to proceed in this way because it is in the midst of amending the planning program. It can make changes to a zoning bylaw because to not do so would create zoning which would no longer conform to the planning program. “If we don’t amend our zoning bylaw, our zoning bylaw won’t be conforming to our planning program.”

Hudson’s three compliance bylaws are based on the work of Jean-François Viens, an urban planning consultant for L’Atelier Urbain, the firm contracted last year to prepare Hudson’s compliance file. As Viens walked residents through the compliance process, it became clear that densification without consultation had been this administration’s goal from the outset of the process.

Following the meeting, Viens told me that Hudson doesn’t fit the TOD concept, a one-size-fits-all densification tool designed for suburban dormitory communities stretching from Boisbriand to Boucherville. The aim of the TODs was to encourage development like we see along Vaudreuil-Dorion’s de la Gare, with dozens of commuter trains and express buses to and from downtown Montreal and scores of shuttle buses between West Island and off-island destinations.

The core belief driving the CMM’s PMAD and these TODs is that urban sprawl is something to be avoided. New developments mean new services – roads, public transportation, water, sewage treatment, waste management, schools and other municipal infrastructure. Densification makes better use of existing infrastructure and helps local economies remain sustainable.

Hudson, with its two trains a day weekdays, ageing population, infrastructure issues and small-town heritage, isn’t what TOD’s originators had in mind, Viens said.

I asked him whether residents should fight the TOD designation. “It’s too late for that,” he told me. “Now is not the time for a great reflection…maybe in one or two years, with a strategic vision…”

Viens said any appeal for another delay would have to be directed to the municipal affairs minister. The concordance process in Hudson is clearly politicized with the approaching elections and it’s unlikely another delay would be granted.

Those who attended that first consultation were surprised at town hall’s haste in ramrodding concordance past residents, especially since it is not subject to approval by referendum. DG Jean-Pierre Roy said it would be adopted at the June 5 council meeting without further discussion or debate. His rationale – Hudson has already been granted two extensions (six and nine months) and is the last MRC holdout.

As we were to learn, that last statement wasn’t true.

The following night at the monthly MRC council meeting, residents Jamie Nicholls, Marcus Owen and Austin Rickley-Krindle were told Hudson is one of six of the 11 MRC municipalities in the CMM which have yet to harmonize their master plans with those of the CMM and MRC. Councillor Nicole Durand, who has been attending MRC council meetings in the mayor’s stead, said nothing. The next day, MRC spokesman Simon Richard confirmed that number to me.

Since then, we’ve learned that just 44% of the MMC’s 82 municipalities have passed concordance resolutions.

Nor is there any evidence the Prévost administration has attempted to change the CMM’s mind on density requirements in non-TOD sectors of Hudson’s urban perimeter (http://cmm.qc.ca/fileadmin/user_upload/fiche/TOD/FicheTod_11.pdf).

The facts suggest the town is willing to densify wherever it can. At the May 23 consult, a contingent of residents from the Hillside/Charleswood (non-TOD) sector demanded that the town un-tick a box in 689’s Appendix C which would have allowed multi-family dwellings as well as a seniors’ residence in R-55, a five-hectare lot that lies between Côte St. Charles, Oakland, Charleswood and Ridge.

The group’s spokesman, Keith Heller, noted that residents approved zoning in 2007 for a continuing-care seniors’ campus with fewer than 150 doors — but not for a development that would allow double that number of multi-family units.

Heller was especially incensed that two lots he owns at the site’s southern extremity linking the main body to Charleswood had been rezoned without his knowledge or consultation. Town planner Natalie Lavoie told him she did it to satisfy a potential developer.

The knowledge of the audience and the quality of questions at both meetings has been, and continues to be, the high point of this process. Those who stood in line at the mic represented three generations and included a former mayor (Elizabeth Corker), both declared candidates in November’s mayoral race (Bill Nash, Jamie Nicholls) and several potential council candidates. I counted half a dozen former Town Planning Advisory Committee members and probably missed some.

Most of the questions were focused and informed. Most who asked them succeeded in keeping their tempers. Some of the sharpest observations (“What sidewalks?”) came from young residents who will be voting in their first municipal elections this fall. It was tremendously heartening to see the youth and experience working in tandem. One result: the creation of a group tentatively calling itself the Hudson Group for Smart Development (that may end up being a working name, with an official shingle and structure to follow a June 19 gathering.

A lot still isn’t clear. We know there’s a draft bylaw in the works to bring Greenwood Centre for Living History into compliance. We can assume the town would like to make similar concessions for the Auberge Willow Place Inn, Como ferry and a list of grandfathered businesses operating in residential and agricultural zones. From what I’ve learned about Bill 122, the province’s draft legislation handing more power to municipalities, referendums will become the exception in zoning and land use.

Is this good or bad? Like all powers, this one depends on whose hands in which we place it.

This story was edited June 5/17 to make it clear the town is proposing to transfer both Wyman United and its parking lot from  P-57 to C-27. It was further modified June 6/17 to reflect a land use bylaw revision making Bylaw 692.1 subject to approval by referendum.