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Mayor Hutchison mentioned it in passing but most people probably missed it. For the next four months, you won’t be allowed to do anything to your house, commercial building or property that will be affected by the bylaws the town wants to adopt. One way to find out who and what will change.

So don’t be cutting any two-inch trees without checking in with Urban Planning.

Under Quebec’s Land Use and Development Act (LAU), Hudson’s proposed planning bylaw revisions trigger a four-month freeze on any application or operation which would be altered or refused once the two bylaws are given final adoption.

But if council fails to adopt bylaws 767 and 768 within that window for whatever reason, the freeze is automatically lifted, leaving only the town’s stale-dated interim control bylaw (RCI) to block property owners from demanding permits under current bylaws.

Two months after that, the proposed replacements become what is known in municipal parlance as zombie bylaws — still on the books but inoperative.  

The countdown began at the Jan. 10 council meeting where notices of motion for draft bylaws 767 and 768 were presented, followed by their adoption.

LAU Art. 114: When a notice of motion has been given to adopt or amend a zoning by-law, no building plan may be approved nor may any permit or certificate be granted for the carrying out of works or use of an immovable which, if the by-law that is the subject of the notice of motion is adopted, will be prohibited in the zone concerned.

Because both bylaws were presented and adopted, council gains an additional two months for final adoption:

The first paragraph ceases to be applicable to the works or use in question on the date occurring two months after the filing of the notice of motion if the by-law has not been adopted by that date or, if the by-law has been adopted, on the date occurring four months after the date of its adoption if the by-law is not in force on that date.

Council can buy more time in the form of a replacement bylaw. (A revised bylaw could be based on citizen’s comments and recommendations): 

Where, however, within two months after the filing of the notice of motion, the amending by-law is the subject, under section 128, of a second draft by-law, the first paragraph ceases to be applicable to the works or use in question on the date occurring four months after the filing of the notice of motion if the by-law has not been adopted by that date or, if the by-law has been adopted, on the date occurring four months after the date of its adoption if the by-law is not in force on that date.

As the mayor explained at the Jan. 10 meeting, final adoption is planned for the April council meeting, after which the bylaws go to the Vaudreuil-Soulanges regional municipality to ensure they harmonize with the MRC’s master plan before the town can bring them into force. 

All this time, the LAU clock is ticking. 

UPDATE: Here’s the town’s response to my question about the freeze at the last council meeting (my translation):

As a follow-up to your question at the last city council, here is why there is no freeze that applies:

Currently, tree-cutting applications should not be suspended until the regulations come into force in the fall, because our notice of motion has no freezing effect.

Any adoption of a regulation must be preceded by a notice of motion and a tabling of the draft regulation. In urban planning, the notice of motion can have a freezing effect if it is a zoning (or amendment) by-law, subdivision, PIIA or on municipal works agreements. According to section 114 of the Planning and Urban Development Act, the freezing effect seems automatic. However, in 2012, the courts determined that a notice of motion must be specific enough to have a freezing effect. The purpose of the freeze effect on the filing of the notice of motion is to prevent the municipal will from being neutralized by the filing of substantially complete permit applications before the coming into force of the by-laws, Whereas the procedure for adopting urban planning regulations is longer than that for other regulations.

As we are already under a certain freeze with the Interim Control Regulation (RCI) in place, it was decided not to impose an additional freeze effect.

Once the revised bylaws are given final approval later this spring, the mayor has said council will vote to lift the RCI.

Those familiar with the LAU’s regulatory timeline say any delay in lifting the RCI increases the likelihood of a legal challenge. “An RCI is supposed to be an interim measure”, one municipal governance consultant told me. “By Year 3, a judge could agree with a plaintiff the clock has run out.”

So it’s no wonder that Hudson’s mayor and council are hoping to get away with “a few tweaks” in their rush to adopt 767 and 768 in their final versions. The alternative: a geriatric RCI, zombie bylaws and three years of squandered promises to their supporters.

“Groundhog Day”, Buddy said to me prior to this week’s public consultation on draft bylaws 767 and 768. “Remember?”

On Monday, Nov. 18, 2019, mayor Jamie Nicholls chaired a public consultation on draft bylaw 526.8 proposing to establish a 30-metre buffer zone around watercourses and wetlands.

The proposed bylaw — within council’s authority, according to an opinion from one of Quebec’s foremost environmental lawyers — would ban all tree-cutting as well as the owner’s use of machinery within any part of the setback on their own property, including lawn cutting. Any new projects — pools, sheds, decks, gazebos, even replacement of a failing sewage treatment system — would be prohibited.

In the leadup to the consult, the urban planning department was asked to create a map overlay showing the 30-metre line imposed on a municipal cadastral map. The overlay confirmed the proposed bylaw would directly impact hundreds of properties throughout the municipality.

The mayor opened the presentation by telling the room that councillors were deadlocked 3-3, so he had already decided to vote yes to break the deadlock. In other words, don’t waste your breath, folks.

“We’re not doing this to make people angry or to remove peoples’ rights,” Nicholls told the standing-room-only crowd at the Community Centre. “We’re doing this to protect the network of wetlands and watercourses which make up Hudson’s natural spaces.” 

Nicholls strove to convince residents this was the price taxpayers needed to pay for protecting Hudson’s natural heritage, thus opening the outrage floodgates and a pushback campaign by the bylaw’s supporters. By that December, the mayor had taken a leave of absence and caucus had agreed to let 526.8 expire without adoption. (It remains on the books, even though it has no effect, a so-called zombie bylaw.)

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There may be those who have never seen the classic 1993 film Groundhog Day. In it, Bill Murray is a burnt-out weatherman and Allie McGraw the bubbly TV reporter trapped in a time loop centred on an annual celebration of the rodent’s storied ability to predict the weather. Groundhog Day has become a synonym for being trapped in an unpleasant situation without hope of a positive outcome.

On the eve of Groundhog Day, 2024, I’m listening to the recording of that 2019 public consultation. Many of the voices are those of people who spoke out at Thursday’s public consultation. The comments and the tone of the 2019 gathering were remarkably similar to those of 2024.

The difference was that this time, the mayor sat this one out. Apart from her opening and closing comments, Chloe Hutchison and councillors left it to former DG and special projects consultant Martin Houde, urban planning department deputy director Melissa Francis and Paré+ urban planning consultant Vincent Langevin to answer questions. Running the meeting was professional facilitator Marie-Hélene Gauthier. 

The mayor’s absence at the front of the room meant that questions concerning the intent of the bylaws went unanswered because they were political. Instead of taxing growth and improvement, why not finance park infrastructure upgrades and new acquisitions with Hudson’s $8 million accumulated surplus or the $1 million plus the town collects from the welcome tax? Or how about a townwide special tax, seeing as how parks and greenspace are for everyone’s benefit? 

That’s political, we heard. Save it for the next council meeting (at 7 p.m. next Monday, Feb. 5). 

From the outset, it became clear that those answering questions were not familiar with the contents of the draft bylaws or how they propose to modify Hudson’s current zoning, tariffs and land use bylaws. For the vast majority of residents, Sections 10 and 11 of draft bylaw 767 were hopelessly confusing and poorly explained. What renovations cross the 33% threshold by volume? Why is the commercial threshold — 25% of floor area — different than residential? Where does a building’s footprint enter into it? Why should council be the arbiter in determining whether the 20% tax grab in the urban core is in land, cash or both? What constitutes an intensification of existing activities? A change in usage? The difference between an extension and an addition?

The deeper they got into the weeds, the more people realized that the explanations and Cole’s notes they had been given at the two open houses were either misleading or just plain wrong.

Some of the answers came as a shock. The town has no clue what revenues they hope to raise through green fund “contributions,” which suggests to me they don’t know who and what will be taxed. Property owners would have no way of knowing they have triggered the parkland contribution threshold until they find out their building permit will cost them $40,000. The findings of an upcoming parks and recreation study could force a change in the tax structure.

Other sections of both bylaws were no clearer. The owners of a lot in Hudson Valleys were told their lot was unbuildable because it contained a wetland — regardless of the facts that suggest the wetland was created by the buildup of adjacent properties since the original subdivision. Many wondered whether a protected wetland had a minimum area to require a 15-metre buffer. (what, my frog pond?) A resident whose property abuts on one of the four zones slated for comprehensive development programs in draft bylaw 768 asked whether the developer would be required to ensure a minimum treed buffer on the property line (not in the bylaw). Would the town consider paying for the biologist’s report? Why not subsidize the cutting and replacement of ash trees on private land?

Because of the lack of clarity, emotions ran high. Ken Crombie’s questions — shouldn’t all citizens pay for greenspace instead of a small percentage and what can we do to force a referendum instead of letting six councillors decide — brought the first of many rounds of applause as resident after resident vented their frustrations. For many, it was purely personal. “With this bylaw, who will buy a fixer-upper,” one resident asked. 

I suspect that this council will be more cautious than our council was in the 2019 showdown. Wiser heads will prevail and the draft bylaws will be sent back for revision. But as several residents opined on Facebook, it makes it difficult to trust a council when something this full of holes is run up the flagpole. Again.

After two public consultation sessions, Hudson residents are voicing their frustration over the confusion surrounding the impact of a proposed parks and greenspace surtax on subdivision, construction and renovation permits in nearly half the municipality.

Termed a ‘contribution’ in the town’s documents and presentations, the proposed 10-20% levy — in cash, land or a combination of both — would add thousands to the cost of a major commercial or residential renovation — or change in usage, such as from commercial to residential.

The calculation of what a property owner will pay in cash, land or both would be based on the assessed value of the lot.  

For most residents, the grey area is what will trigger the surtax. The addition of a detached garage, new kitchen, bathroom, pool,  or shed won’t. Homeowners will be able to rebuild after a disaster, replace windows, a roof, flooring or siding without any impact. But new contruction on a vacant lot, rebuilding after a demolition or renovation of a third or more of their home will cost the owner 10% of the assessed value of their lot. Same goes for the addition of two or more residential units in an existing building or enlarging a commercial building by more than 25% of its original footprint.  

In examples cited in an explanatory sheet distributed at both open houses, the owner of a property with a taxable value of $400,000 would be billed $40,000 — a contribution equal to 10% of its assessment. If that property had been the result of a subdivision on which the owner had already paid 10% of its value in land, cash or both, the tax bill would be reduced to $30,000.

Several points in the explanation document appear to contradict the draft bylaw, perhaps the reason for the fine-print disclaimer at the bottom.

Questions most asked:

How many property owners are affected? 

Facilitators at last Wednesday’s open house tried to minimize the potential impact. A Hudson urban planning staff member told me that between January 2021 and December 2023, only five of the 112 major renovation permits issued by the town would have crossed the contribution threshold. However nobody running the event would hazard a guess as to the number of properties — commercial or residential — with a potential tax burden, should their owners apply for a permit. One resident told me they’re already planning renovations in phases in order to stay below the 33%.

Who came up with this scheme?

Draft bylaws 767 and 768 were the product of urban planning consultants Paré+, Hudson’s planning department and an ad-hoc conservation working group (CWG) which included councillors Mark Gray and Doug Smith and seven unelected residents. Created in January 2022 as part of the interim control process, the CWG was dissolved by a council vote at last month’s meeting because it had completed its’ mandate. Gray credited Donald Attwood, Tanja Bruns, JJ Corker, Sylvie Ferron, David Kalant, Briony Lalor, Kevin Solarik and non-resident resource person Lorraine Caron.

Whoever came up with Section 11, the part of draft bylaw 767 laying out the surtax framework, they’re not claiming responsibility. 

Why?

Besides creating a sustainable source of funding for greenspace acquisition and upkeep, the financial burden is concentrated on those with the financial resources to absorb the hit, as opposed to the entire taxpaying body. It also discourages would-be developers from coming anywhere near Hudson unless they’re ready to play by the town’s terms.

Couldn’t council use Hudson’s $8 million accumulated surplus instead of targeting those who want to improve their property?

Yes, they could. But the mayor has said the surplus should be used for social projects, such as affordable housing. 

Is there anything similar anywhere else in Quebec? 

Pare+ representative Vincent Langevin told me only one other Quebec municipality — on the West Island — charges a similar surtax on development. Consultant/facilitator Marie-Helene Gauthier said Hudson was taking a bold step with the proposed taxation structure. Bold isn’t the word I’d use. Foolhardy? Feckless?

Where does the land and/or money go? 

The cash will go to a segregated account, to be used only to acquire land for parks or to protect wetlands and woodlands of ecological value as well as to maintain existing parks, playgrounds and trails. However, the bylaw adds this: “the Town may, however, […] dispose of lands acquired under this section.” Simply, this bylaw will allow future councils to resell lands acquired under this bylaw as long as the proceeds go to the parks fund.

Last week I urged the administration to withdraw both bylaws and take the time to redraft them in light of generalized confusion. I reiterate: these bylaws are unadoptable as drafted. Fix them so they at least make sense.

The twin bylaws comprising Hudson’s proposed urban planning program overhaul are seriously flawed — so much so that this council must take whatever time it takes to have them redrafted.

But that’s just my opinion, which I’ll explain below.

This week, residents are being asked to weigh the impact of bylaw changes that would impose a 10-20% surtax in land, cash or a combination of both on a subdivision, major renovation, expansion or change in usage of any residential or commercial property in Hudson.

As Hudsonites will learn at two open houses (7-9 this Thursday evening and 9-noon Saturday) as well as at a public consultation (7 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 31), the administration’s intent is to finance acquisition of lands for future parks and recreation areas as well as to encourage landowners to sign over their properties.

Among other proposed changes are mandatory 15-metre no-touch zones on properties adjacent to wetlands or shorelines and the protection of close to 200 ‘remarkable’ trees throughout the urban core. (Demand to know whether your trees are on the list.)

Draft bylaws 767 and 768 were presented at the Jan. 10 council meeting with final adoption planned for the April 2 session. Bylaw 767 amends four existing bylaws — 526 (zoning); 527 (subdivision); 529 (permits and certificates) and 571 (site planning and architectural integration programs).

Bylaw 768 ordains a new set of rules for future development of four large non-agricultural blocs of land including Willowbrook, Sandy Beach, the site of a proposed continuing-care seniors’ campus off Côte St. Charles, and a woodlot between Main Road and the rail line east of Mount Pleasant.

Neither bylaw is subject to approval by referendum as long as citizens are given the opportunity to comment. Council is not obliged to withdraw or modify either bylaw regardless of public concerns, which can be submitted in writing until Feb. 14. Mayor Chloe Hutchison has said the target date for final adoption is the April 2 council meeting.

Depending on input from the Vaudreuil-Soulanges MRC, Hutchison hopes to lift the Dec. 2021 interim control measures by August. 

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Here’s why I think council should redraft these bylaws:

1) It’s a laudable goal, building a fund for parks and recreation. But on the backs of property owners? This change wasn’t thought through in light of higher mortgage interest rates and construction costs and Ottawa’s threat to penalize municipalities that refuse to densify their housing stock.

Residents should know that Hudson already has a parks fund containing monies collected in lieu of land for Quebec’s mandatory 10% subdivision levy in either land or cash. The municipality decides which.

Council must be brought to realize the draconian fiscal impact of an improvement surtax/land grab over and above the table d’hote of taxes Hudson property owners already pay.

It’s not because Hudson needs the revenue. The town is sitting on an $8 million accumulated surplus that can easily be accessed for parks and greenspaces, so let’s hear council’s justification for hammering anyone who wants to upgrade their residence or commercial property.

Draft bylaw 767 defines a major renovation as any project involving 33% and more of the volume of an existing construction, which currently requires a building permit — and in the case of a property located in one of Hudson’s SPAIPs, a yes vote from council on a recommendation from TPAC.

The addition of a garage, a kitchen/bathroom upgrade, family room, basement living quarters or intergenerational suite would likely trigger the 33% parks threshold.

The median price for a house in Hudson is close to $600k. Most buyers will want to upgrade to meet their requirements, so the question becomes whether the Hudson cachet is worth an additional 10% — over and above the transfer tax. So do sellers of unimproved properties compensate for the added charge by lowering their asking price?

If adopted, Bylaw 767 would give the town the power to dictate the combination of cash and greenspace in any subdivision, renovation or usage change. This has been abused in the past and I can understand why council would hang tough on this one. But Sections 401.1 through 401.5 create an obligation on the property owner to transfer land or pay a sum of money for parks, playgrounds or natural areas for the following:

— Any subdivision permit application for approval of a cadastral operation;

— Any building permit application related to construction of a new main building on a property whose registration as a separate lot has not been the subject of a subdivision permit resulting from Quebec’s 1994 cadastral reform;

— Any building permit application for a redevelopment project on a property (described above);

— Any building permit application for the intensification of existing activities on a property (defined in the bylaw as any construction project with the aim of adding two or more residential units in a building or enlarging a commercial building by more than 25% of its existing floor area);

— Any building permit application to allow new activities on a property. (Nowhere is this defined in the draft bylaw. Would the Chateau du Lac be obliged to sign over cash and greenspace for renting to healthcare professionals? Would any of Hudson’s commercial landlords be billed for a change in tenants? Clearly, this clause is both incoherent and beyond the town’s authority to enforce.  

2) Section 15 of draft bylaw 768 bestows on the Town Planning Advisory Committee the power to defer its recommendation on a developer’s comprehensive development program (CDP, or PAE in French) application on the basis that it needs further information. This has been a standard go-to excuse by TPAC to stall a council vote and has led to past turf wars, such as those over Willowbrook and condo projects at 426 Main and 98 Cameron. I see this as a rationalization for more stalling tactics on politically difficult files, like what happened to Villa Wyman.

Even more concerning are these clauses from Section 17 Approval by the town council:

— Once it votes to approve TPAC’s positive recommendation, “council may also require as the condition for approval of an application, that the owners of the buildings located in the area covered by the comprehensive development program […] bear the cost of certain elements of the CDP, including infrastructure or equipment.”  I’m not a lawyer, but surely requiring neighbours and residents of a new subdivision project to complete the project within a specified period and provide financial guarantees is beyond a town’s powers.

Even more baffling is the following weasel clause:

“The approval of a CDP/PAE in no way commits the town council to undertake a modification to urban planning regulations and issue corresponding permits, nor does it constitute an obligation for the town to accept the proposed roads appearing in the CDP, decree their opening, bear the construction and maintenance costs or assume civil responsibilities.”

In other words, even if council approves a subdivision development, it is under no obligation to municipalize the road network. Quebec already requires the developer to build, pave and pay for all CDP/PAE infrastructure, roads included, so why would this bylaw allow council to wriggle out of taking them over? So that the town can then ban winter snow plowing, waste collection, school bus service and other municipal services? Smells like another stalling tactic to make those pesky developers and their needy buyers go away.

I’ll be submitting these and other concerns, both orally during the Jan. 31 consult, and in writing for the two weeks following. I have no illusions that this council will heed my or anyone’s advice.

Please take the time to attend either of the two open houses, or failing that, the public consultation on Jan. 31. The only reason we live with bad laws is because we don’t demand better.

Hudson households will be getting a pamphlet in the mail from the town, advising them of the consultation process required for adoption of two bylaws imposing new constraints on future residential development.

But despite extensive lobbying by Save Sandy Beach activists and those opposed to Como’s Willowbrook, nothing in either bylaw blocks their development.

Bylaws 767 and 768 have been in the works since December 2021, when the current council adopted an interim control resolution, or RCI, imposing a 90-day subdivision and construction freeze on any lot falling within wetlands or woodlots characterized in a conservation plan adopted by the previous council. Residents were told at the time the 90-day freeze was required to buy time to revise Hudson’s planning program so that development could not proceed. 

The 90-day freeze stretched into more than two years, during which mayor Chloe Hutchison would regularly tell concerned residents the bylaw rewrite was delayed for a variety of reasons, most of them having to do with staffing issues. The delay froze almost all new multi-unit residential development, including projects approved by previous councils and triggered an undisclosed number of lawsuits. In adopting the freeze, Hutchison said hundreds of lots would be impacted, although construction on many has been approved following third-party analyses of their ecological value.

Replying to questions at Wednesday’s first council meeting of 2024, Hutchison predicted that the interim control measure, or RCI, won’t likely be lifted until August because of delays built into the approval process. Although neither proposed bylaw adopted this week is subject to approval by referendum, both make public consultation an integral part of their adoption. 

The consultation process agreed to by the town and its urban planning consultants calls for three meetings (open houses Thursday, Jan. 25 and Saturday Jan. 27, plus a Q&A Wednesday, Jan. 31). Residents have two weeks after that to submit their observations and suggestions, which may or may not result in changes to either or both draft bylaws. Hutchison said the target for final adption is April 2.

Next, the draft bylaws must be submitted to the Vaudreuil-Soulanges MRC to ensure they don’t clash with the MRC’s master development plan, or SADR3, and by extension, the Montreal Metropolitan Community’s PMAD. The MRC has 150 days to respond.

Bylaw 767 is what is termed an omnibus because it amends sections of existing bylaws without replacing the bylaws themselves. Parts of zoning bylaw 526, subdivision bylaw 527, permits and certificates bylaw 529 and architectural control bylaw 571 are being replaced with new definitions and tighter rules on everything from tree protection and replacement to the acquisition and sale of private and town-owned greenspace. Remarkable trees — a new protection category — lists 187 trees by address and GPS co-ordinates and will require a consultant’s finding that the tree is dead, dying or dangerous before one can be felled. Fines for violations range between $100 and $15,000.

Bylaw 768 “on comprehensive development programs” imposes tighter development constraints  on the four largest parcels of undeveloped land in the urban perimeter: Willowbrook (R-7, R-15); Sandy Beach (R-22, R-24); Charleswood/Côte St. Charles (R-55) and a site on the north side of Main Road opposite Somerset.

The bylaw defines comprehensive development programs thus: 

“When one or more owners wish to enhance one or more properties in the sectors concerned by theis bylaw, they must prepare a comprehensive development program (CDP/PAE) before making any request to modify the current urban planning bylaws…” To be eligible for submission to the town planning advisory committee (TPAC), a CDP must be in the form of a booklet which must satisfy a lengthy list of requirements. These include studies and concepts for the preservation of natural and built structures, plus allowances for transportation, recreation and other public amenities such as underground energy and communications infrastructure. 

Any CDP of more than 10 pages must also include an executive summary of up to six pages.

The bylaw also establishes the town’s right to demand that developers shoulder the bill for connection to existing infrastructure.   

Noteworthy in light of the town’s potential exposure to legal action by thwarted developers and  property owners is Section 4: “this bylaw is adopted in parts, so that if any division of this bylaw is declared nul and void by a court, such a decision would have no effect on other parts of the bylaw.” 

Also noteworthy are the built-in delays and the revised role of TPAC in draft bylaw 768.

The town’s urban planners have up to 60 days to determine whether a file is complete or requires additional material before passing it to TPAC, which can take as long as it wants  to draft its recommendation for acceptance, modification or rejection of the project. TPAC may also request additional information from the CDP applicant and defer its recommendation indefinitely.

The bylaw’s second chapter deals with Willowbrook, with permitted densities of between five and 15 units per hectare depending on whether they are single-family, townhouses or row housing, all of which are open for consideration as long as the result is more greenspace. “The planning of any development must be subordinate to the respect for natural environments and ecosystem balance.” The goal is to preserve a minimum proportion of greenspace for the overall project, rather that per lot.

In summary, the bylaw would allow Habitation Robert to proceed with future phases of Willowbrook if the developer agrees to protect additional greenspace.

Regarding the proposed 214-unit Sandy Beach development, Bylaw 768 holds out the possibility the town could approve single-family, semi-detached two and three-family dwellings with an gross density of 17.5 to 35 units per hectare. Again, the claimed goal is to preserve greenspace by encouraging greater densities in sectors of the project. 

For both R-55 and Sandy Beach, the bylaw offers the conceptual underpinning for creation of residential sectors where people aren’t dependent on their cars. “The comprehensive development plan […] is close to the village core and at a short distance from the Hudson train station…Therefore particular attention must be paid to reducing facilities favouring automobile use, both in housing offerings and outdoor facilities.”

Neither bylaw addresses the fate of multi-unit residential projects in the town core, of which three were approved by previous councils. Only one, the 18-unit assisted-care Villa Wyman, has been cancelled by its promoters.

But despite extensive lobbying by Save Sandy Beach activists and those opposed to Como’s Willowbrook, nothing in either bylaw blocks their development.

They are a bunch of amateurs,” Hudson mayor Chloe Hutchison tells 1019 Report’s Brenda O’Farrell. “Put it in the hands of people who can get it done.”

An unfortunate choice of words in a town which depends on amateurs and volunteers for a wide range of activities and services, many of them taxpayer-funded. Was it meant to be off the record? Not for attribution? Or will the mayor insist yet again that she was taken out of context?

Whatever, the mayor’s gratuitous insult appears to have been directed at the Villa Wyman’s board of directors, who voted earlier this month to abandon plans for an 18-unit assisted-care senior’s residence in Hudson’s downtown core after having been jerked around by the current council for the better part of two years. 

Although the Villa Wyman project was eventually approved by the current council a year ago (Nov. 7/22), the town continued to demand architectural, parking and landscaping modifications, each one of them pushing back the construction start date by the time it took to work its way through the urban planning approval process.

The board’s Dec. 7 decision to terminate the project followed council’s refusal to grant the project a minor derogation to accommodate an encroachment on the parking lot shared with the former Wyman Memorial church, now a Sikh temple. “It was less than three feet,” board member Diane Ratcliffe told me. 

A municipal derogation was required because the temple’s administrators, after months of delay, refused Villa Wyman’s request for a legal servitude.

The irony in the mayor’s bunch-of-amateurs comment is that it was Villa Wyman’s architect —a professional — who failed to notice the encroachment. Nor were they alone in missing it. Encroachments are highlighted in surveys as well as in deeds of sale, which involve realtors, surveyors, notaries and urban planning departments. 

My point is that a raft of professionals were involved in the eight-year journey planning this $8 million project. Municipalities, Hudson included, routinely approve minor derogations for exactly these reasons.

Earlier this fall, an alarm bell rang when the mayor, asked about the project’s advancement, said this council would not approve a derogation. I took it as a warning that unless the various actors in this slow-mo farce could come up with an alternative, the Villa Wyman project was doomed. 

Those of us who have followed its evolution since it was introduced as a rezoning bylaw during the Prévost administration know it was crippled from the outset by a slew of factors. Its location, on the south end of the Wyman parking lot behind Stephenson Court, was less than ideal. 

Residents, including Hutchison, fought the rezoning bylaw before a provincial administrative tribunal, which ruled the town was within its powers.

Throughout the process and even now, board members have refrained from attacking the administration, but when asked if they might reconsider their decision, the answer remains a firm no.

The board isn’t looking at doing anything else in the future, Diane Ratcliffe told me this past week. “If we were to go forward, we would be getting into the hard part — construction, where decisions have to be made quickly.”

In the end, it became a matter of whether the board could trust the current council not to sabotage the project, then blame it on them.

“In any endeavour you need partners. The town told us ‘Do not come to us for a request for a derogation’ […] the Sikhs are not willing to work with us. Without approval, support or partnership we didn’t have the stomach to go forward.”

The next phase begins with cancellation of the mortgage associated with the project, Ratcliffe said. “The SHQ (Société d’habitation du Québec) will help guide us through the process of rolling it back.”

Once costs already incurred are paid out,  the rest of the $4.2 million in federal and provincial funding will be returned. 

As for the now-empty lot, the mayor indicated at the August 7 council meeting that the town could use its power of pre-emptive rights to put a freeze on the land for as long as 10 years. Whether or not the town would be forced to buy it at some future date will depend on recent changes to legislation giving Quebec municipalities greater powers to expropriate land.

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Ratcliffe is hopeful that the board’s work won’t be wasted. “I gather that there is a non-profit group created this past February, Toît d’abord, that has been set up, with (St. Lazare mayor) Genevieve Lachance president of the board of directors […] Chloe, chairing the MRC regional housing board, suggested we get in touch with them.”

“We are going to look into it with Manon Leduc, our point person and DG of Groupe des ressources techniques du sud-ouest, our staff person who steered us through the entire process,” Ratcliffe added. 

Leduc’s professional track record includes the 82-unit co-op apartment block in Pincourt’s Pointe-a-Renard sector. “She has contacts with similar associations that exist everywhere in Quebec.”

Ratcliffe’s harshest words directed at the mayor and council? “It would be really nice if they made their intentions clear. If they had a plan for the village core, they should share it.”

A heartfelt apology is in order, Madam Mayor.

Eight years in the planning, an 18-unit assisted-living facility in Hudson’s downtown sector is being withdrawn by its backers following council’s rejection of a proposed parking modification.

Although the Villa Wyman project was approved by council a year ago (Nov. 7/22), the configuration of parking spaces on the enclaved lot proved to be the devil in the details. 

According to Hudson mayor Chloe Hutchison, the project’s promoters could not reach agreement with its neighbours on the layout of the parking area shared with the former Wyman Memorial United Church, now a Sikh temple. 

At its December meeting, council voted to reject Villa Wyman’s request to modify the approved project to satisfy both its neighbours and the town’s bylaws. Council’s rejection was based on the lack of landscaping and vegetation on a parking lot that has existed in its current form since the church was built in 1909.

Council’s refusal to grant Villa Wyman a derogation of less than three feet was the last straw for Villa Wyman’s volunteer board.

 “Our Board of Directors […] decided on Thursday by resolution to abandon the project,” founding member Diane Ratcliffe told me Saturday. “If [this council] had wanted to wear us down, they’ve succeeded.”

The project’s financial backers, including Soulanges MNA Marilyne Picard, Vaudreuil-Soulanges MP Peter Schieke and the Town of Hudson will have received an email advising them of the board’s intent to terminate the endeavour, Ratcliffe added.

 The board’s decision triggers the lengthy process of unwinding years of work, beginning with the hiring of a professional evaluator early in the new year. The property — with a 2020 evaluation of $3,296,672 — will be listed for sale and close to $7 million in funding from the federal and provincial housing programs will be returned. Hudson’s only financial exposure is in the form of a 10-year tax holiday, representing $23,661 annually.

At some point in this process, the Town of Hudson is expected to file a preemptive reserve on the property. At the August 2023 council meeting, the mayor included “the Wyman Memorial parking lot where Villa Wyman is to be built” in a list of properties eligible for a pre-emptive reserve.

Adopted at that same meeting, Bylaw 762 enables the municipality to freeze the transfer of designated lots for up to 10 years while an expropriation tribunal determines its market value. (Companion legislation currently before the National Assembly would allow a municipality change zoning to lower a property’s market value.)

Ratcliffe questions the motives of the current council, which twice rejected approval of plans for the structure (in June and October 2022) before conditionally approving them in November. 

“Consistently, every single time, council would tell us to go back and redo the plans. They have not shown any good will. There has been zero co-operation…if you don’t have the support of the town, you won’t succeed.” 

She also wonders whether the temple’s executive has its own agenda for refusing to agree to a servitude in a shared parking lot when Villa Wyman already has 22 parking spaces, whereas the bylaws require 15. “At first they were very agreeable to a servitude, but after months of chasing after them to make it official, they said no.” 

Could it be that the temple hopes to buy the entire site for parking after the town refused to allow them to pave over the greenspace  at the corner of Main and Selkirk? Ratcliffe asks the question, but doesn’t expect an answer to this or any queries about council’s agenda.

After years living in Hudson, she and her husband Peter moved to Kingston to be closer to their daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren. Their son James, a Hudson volunteer firefighter, died in a nautical training accident June 7, 2005.

Gary Dover, ex military intelligence teacher, cabinetmaker, forester, historian, naturalist, friend.

It’s coming up on the anniversary of Gary Dover’s sudden death last September, a sad passing I just learned about from Gary’s wife Anita. There was no obit, no death notice, only a For Sale sign on their house that prompted me to call and Anita to text me the news from the UK. 

 

Gary and I have been in and out of each other’s lives for years. He served in the Canadian Armed Forces with military liason and intelligence in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, taught at the Canadian War College and so happened to have been the intel duty officer the night of the ’95 referendum. We’d talk for hours over beers or in the woods, where we’d bushwack on snowshoes or chop a route through the brush with Gary’s Gurkha kukri and my bush axe. 

 

I never saw him get lost. Before we’d head out, he would study the relevant topographical map and carry a photographic image in his mind as we roamed the expanses of woodlands and wetlands that still cover most of northern Vaudreuil-Soulanges. Back at home, he would draw our route onto the topo map if he thought it warranted marking.

 

Back in the early 2000s, a bunch of us, alarmed at the rate of uncontrolled development and the loss of our region’s eco-corridors, banded together to create Sentiers Vaudreuil-Soulanges. The aim was to lobby the Vaudreuil-Soulanges regional municipality and our respective communities to integrate green corridors in their master plans. With Gary masterminding, volunteers rough-mapped a chain of local walking trails through Hudson, Vaudreuil, St. Lazare, Ste. Marthe, Trés-Saint-Redempteur to connect with Rigaud’s l’Escapade network. 

 

At first, it all seemed to be coming together. The Hudson SVS contingent convinced the Corker administration to give our registered non-profit a mandate to add new trails and maintain Hudson’s trail network at no cost to taxpayers with funding from a national trail-network coalition and a mix of paid and volunteer labour — much as it is done throughout Canada and the U.S. 

 

We hired landscape architect Jamie Nicholls (yes, Hudson’s last mayor) to come up with a trail plan for the 30-acre Viviry Valley Conservation Area. We hired a logger with a team of horses to clean up the existing trail network. We blazed every trail with approved markers, a few of which one can still see.

 

On Thanksgiving weekend in 2008, some 30 of us set out on the inaugural two-day Grand Trek, starting with a blessing from Father Roland Demers next to Hudson’s Mount Pleasant Elementary School and finishing at Rigaud’s Parc de Lotbinière and the Festival des Couleurs. Although some of it passed on public roads and unauthorized rights of way, it proved the concept of a contiguous trail network connecting our communities. 

 

But the intensity didn’t last. In Hudson as in Quebec and Ottawa, every election brings changes in orientation. Throughout the county, municipal councils bowed to landowners who didn’t want strangers anywhere near their properties, let alone on their land. A few of our trails remain, like Hudson’s Parkinson walking and snowshoe trail behind Whitlock West, but the legacy of that first Grand Trek died from a combination of municipal indifference and landowners’ legal threats.

Gary’s response was to go underground. We shut down the SVS website and other administrivia. The outing-club component broke away. Thus died the concept of a contiguous trail network.

 

Freed from the burden of a doomed mission, Gary threw himself into his many passions — gardening, woodworking, history and exploring nature. A skilled and innovative craftsman and cabinetmaker, he taught a generation of amateurs the rudiments of carpentry at his Merlinwood School. He led nature outings at Mount Pleasant Elementary. He experimented with mushroom production. Eventually, he closed his carpentry school and brought everything home to the cozy shop behind his and Anita’s Vaudreuil home, where he quickly branched out into yet another passion — researching ancient musical instruments and their reproduction.

 

My first inkling of this latest twist was the day he invited me to see his first try. It was a lyre, a stringed instrument right out of Homer’s Iliad. To set the table for its presentation, Gary had a basket of home-baked oatcakes and mead standing by. It would prove to be the first of many, many accurate reproductions of historic instruments, including the Irish harp featured on the Guinness beer label. Fittingly, he allowed me to write its story in time for St. Patrick’s Day.

 

The Dover homestead was furnished with beautifully crafted antique reproductions that began life in Gary’s workshop as recycled wood, mainly exotic hardwoods from Asian shipping pallets, but also salvaged timber from deadfalls closer to home. His abilities brought him to Hudson’s Greenwood Centre for Living History and the accurate restoration of pieces in their collection.

 

Gary still found time for hikes, especially when I was sniffing out a story for the Hudson Gazette. In the fall of 2011, he and I hiked into what was to have been the site of the new Vaudreuil-Soulanges regional hospital. (The site, vetoed by the Montreal Metropolitan Community, would have provided space for new schools and health-centred CEGEP as well as for housing for 3,500 hospital employees.) We were left speechless by the beauty and size of the old-growth forests we came across, a major reason why the site remains in its natural state.

 

One might ask why it took so long to learn of a friend’s passing. Gary and Anita would spend long periods travelling to the Middle East, Anita’s Mauritian homeland and the UK among other destinations. During and after the COVID lockdown, he and Anita would head off to a beautiful woodlot they owned in the Glengarry highlands. 

 

Our last conversation was in February 2022. We worked together on a story about the failing aquifer along the height of land above the Viviry Creek’s headwaters. Gary and Anita’s well wasn’t producing as it had; his survey of the neighbourhood revealed that everyone was having similar concerns. The result was Hudson’s priceless wetlands (Feb. 11/22, www.thousandlashes.ca).  

 

Gary and I aren’t quite finished our hike together. Before his death, he provided me with hours of information about his work as a military intelligence officer and historian. God wiling, I’ll have the opportunity to share his insight.

518 Main from the corner of Reid: demolition by attrition?
A Hudson visitor recently asked me why the town allows what looks to be an abandoned crack house in the village centre.
Council wants to preserve a century-old heritage structure, I explained. The timber-frame duplex at the corner of Main and Reid was sold by the family of the original owners to a developer, who flipped it to Groupe Lawlor, whose plans for a three-storey multi-unit condo were rejected by council in July 2022. Hudson’s demolition bylaw (652.2) states that nothing in town can be torn down or moved unless the owner has first obtained authorization to build a replacement, so nothing can move forward until the two sides agree on a compromise.

The town doesn’t have the legal tools to force the developer to maintain or restore the building, let alone incorporate it into plans for the replacement structure. The municipality has adopted legislation that would allow it to place a reserve on the the property, but the courts have established the seller has the right to fair market value. Lawlor paid just under $1.1 million, so the question becomes whether the property would be a worthwhile acquisition for the town.
As long as this stalemate persists, the old Gaudreau house at 514 Main, once a well-kept testament to the skill of the inventive artisans who built much of the town’s French quarter, will remain a very public eyesore, the once well-manicured yard and outbuildings filled with junk, the once cozy sun porch running the length of the frontage a sorry spectacle of torn screens, sagging doors, clapped-out furniture and a tattered Canadian flag.
Demolition by attrition they call it — and it’s not the only example in Hudson’s downtown heritage district.