http://blogs.montrealgazette.com/2009/10/23/projet-montreal-promises-a-beach-in-verdun/
MONTREAL — Official plans are still in the works, but a new beach should be open in Verdun by 2017, said borough councillor Pierre L’Heureux.
“We’re really in the preliminary, very early stages of planning,” said L’Heureux.
L’Heureux said the plan is definitely to have the beach ready by 2017, and based on early estimates, he feels it’s a realistic objective.
A few different locations have been considered and though not yet official, one front-runner would be in front of the Douglas Mental Health Institute, where the old legal snow deposit used to be, on the shore of the St-Lawrence River and alongside LaSalle Blvd.
“It’s an area that needs to have work done, regardless, so we would essentially rehabilitate the landfill, and give the waterfront back to the people of Verdun,” L’Heureux said.
The councillor said Verdun is currently looking into different design plans, after a public consultation in May showed that somewhere between 60 and 70 per cent of people were in favour of having a new beach.
Coralie Deny, of the Conseil régional de l’environnement de Montréal, said a new beach in Verdun is overdue and a step in the right direction for the city of Montreal.
“There’s always been a great demand by Montrealers to have more access to the water, there’s a lot of visual access, but not much actual physical access where people can get in the water,” she said.
Montreal is almost a “forgotten island,” Deny said, explaining how people who live on the island tend to forget its surrounded by water given how little access to it there is.
“What the beach is really part of is this whole vision of turning the borough back toward the river,” L’Heureux said.
A new beach is also set to open in Rivière-des-Prairies–Pointe-aux-Trembles in 2016. Early design for that beach show it will include a boardwalk, service centres, badminton and volleyball courts and a reflecting pool. The total costs for the project are $3 million.
L’Heureux said Verdun would be interested in a similar model, but on a smaller and less expensive scale.
jfeith@montrealgazette.com
