Off-island population explosion: Census

BY MARC LALONDE

marc.lalonde@transcontinental.ca

There is major growth in the off-island area, according to 2006 Census population figures released by Statistics Canada yesterday.

St. Lazare’s population grew 32 per cent from 2001 to 2006, figures showed, while neighbour Vaudreuil-Dorion’s population shot up 29 per cent over the same period. Vaudreuil-Dorion’s population of 25,789 makes it the most populous municipality in the off-island area.

“Businesses are opening here every day,” said Vaudreuil-Dorion Mayor Guy Pilon. “We are at the intersection of three major highways, we are on the water, we are 15 minutes from Montreal and you get a taste of the country and city at the same time.”

The total population of the immediate western off-island area (made up of Ile Perrot, Notre Dame de l’Ile Perrot, Terrasse-Vaudreuil, Pincourt, Vaudreuil-sur-le-Lac, Vaudreuil-Dorion, Hudson, and St. Lazare) grew 19.8 per cent, to 82,177 — up from 68,579 in 2001.

West Island Industrial Commissioner Gerry Arsenault said people moving to the off-island area are in search of quality of life and cheaper land.

“What’s happening is that — whether it’s true or not — there’s a perception that housing costs are cheaper out in the off-island area and they see a quality of life they want. The Hudson/St. Lazare crowd, I would say you’re talking about quality of life, but more south in Ile Perrot and Notre Dame de l’Ile Perrot, you’re looking at land that’s probably a lot cheaper than it is on the island. New construction is new construction, and the fact is property taxes aren’t that far off from Montreal’s because you’re still paying for infrastructure. It’s all about the cost of land,” he said.

In the West Island, the municipal body with the most population growth, because of its myriad new housing developments constructed in the last half-decade, is Pierrefonds, according to the Census.

The 2006 population of the Pierrefonds portion of Montreal's Pierrefonds/Roxboro borough is 59,093, up from 54,963 in 2001 - 7.5-per-cent increase.

Meanwhile, between 2001 and 2006, Roxboro's population grew by 5.4 per cent - from 5,642 to 5,948.

“We’ve had a good population growth, but with that growth comes the difficulty of moving those people around,” lamented Pierrefonds/Roxboro borough mayor Monique Worth. “If we don’t improve our public-transit and road situations, I don’t know what we’re going to do.”

Many residents of western Pierrefonds face waits of up to 45 minutes just to get to Highway 40 every morning. That’s why Worth is renewing her call for the extension of Highway 440 as “an urban boulevard” to Highway 40.

As for reconstituted West Island municipalities, the biggest population increase percentage was in Pointe Claire, which climbed by three per cent to 30,161. Dollard des Ormeaux had a 1.5-per cent population increase, to 48,930, while Ste. Anne de Bellevue’s population jumped 2.7 per cent to 5,197. Baie d’Urfé’s population jumped 2.3 per cent to 3,902 and Dorval’s jumped 2.2 per cent, to 18,088. Kirkland had a modest 0.3-per-cent increase, to 20,491, while Beaconsfield and Senneville had population decreases of 0.8- and 0.6-per-cent, to 19,194 and 962, respectively.

The population of Montreal's West Island borough Ile Bizard rose by 3.3 per cent (from 13,861 to 14,325), while the numbers dropped in Ste. Geneviève by 0.4 per cent (from 3,278 to 3,265).

From the figures culled yesterday, the West Island population sits at 229,556, a 3.2-per-cent increase from the 2001 total of 222,531.