Push to protect Ste. Anne ecoterritory

BY MARC LALONDE

marc.lalonde@transcontinental.ca

Ste. Anne de Bellevue’s urban plan might include residential development in land designated as an ecoterritory by the Montreal agglomeration council, but that doesn’t mean further development of Ste. Anne’s popular northern sector is forthcoming anytime soon, Ste. Anne Mayor Bill Tierney said.

“Just because it’s on our urban plan, it doesn’t mean there’s going to be anything there possibly for a long, long time,� he said.

The land in question is north of Ste. Marie Road near the Riviere a l’Orme corridor. It is owned by a private developer and zoned residential, but was designated as an ecoterritory by the agglomeration council last year.

“The agglomeration council doesn’t own the land, though,� Tierney said, and he doesn’t know if they’re interested in paying for it.

“I don’t know if they can afford to buy it,� Tierney said.

Criticism of the move to include the ecoterritory land as part of a clear-cut residential development came from environmentalist Ryan Young, a member of the city’s environment committee, who he claims never even got to see the plan.

“We were told that we would get a chance to sign off on anything and we never even got to look at it,� said Young, also a member of the Green Coalition. He said he wasn’t opposed to any and all development, but felt there were a number of options he — or the committee could have proposed that would’ve preserved the woods’ unique character — a section of woods home to “Quebec’s rarest snake, the brown snake,� he said.

The plan was adopted in a meeting last month, but Tierney said he would run the plan past the environment committee and consider changes to it then. The mayor said he has alternative plans in minds for the land that would involve McGill University’s Macdonald College campus and create an ecological-park-type development in that area, thus preserving more of the forest’s integrity.

The land still sits placid and quiet, and Beaconsfield Mayor Bob Benedetti, vice-president the agglomeration council’s committee responsible for green-space management, said there is money in the budget for purchase of ecoterritory green space, but only so much.

“There’s some prioritizing that has to take place,� and how much depends on Benedetti’s ability to sell it to the committee. “How much of that money are they wiling to spend? In the end, the municipalities and the agglomeration council have to work together to preserve green space. The agglomeration council has no power to prevent development except on marshland — which is prohibited by the province,� he said.