Griffintown public consultations start tonight

Montrealers will have their first chance Thursday night to learn more about a radical development project proposed for Griffintown.

Development company Devimco is proposing a massive $1.3 billion plan to tear down most of the buildings in the southwest downtown industrial district. They'd be replaced with4,000 new housing units and commercial space that would coveran area about nine city blocks long and three blocks wide.

Public consultations on the project start Thursday night, but some heritage groups,rival developers and urban planners have already criticized Montreal's support for the project, and are calling for further study.

The city has taken the wrong approach with the project, said Pierre Gauthier, an urban planning professor at Concordia University.

"The city, unfortunately, instead of being proactive, is reacting," he said this week.

"We need to sit down and talk and discuss, and have an open discussion to develop collectively a vision of this area, and then developers [can] be welcomed to contribute to this vision."

The city welcomes public input on the project but insists it has done its homework and consulted with experts on the plan, said executive committee member Alan DeSousa.

"I think you've got a lot of Monday-morning quarterbacks trying to pick the project apart," he told CBC News.

Merchants along Ste. Catherine street are worried the development will compete with regular customers that shop along their commercial strip.

Former Verdun mayor Georges Boss, who is now consulting on the project for Devimco, is convinced the opposite will happen.

"I think it's going to bring them new customers, because people will be closer to them," he said in an interview with CBC News. "Ste. Catherine needs a boost, and this boost will be good for them."

Devimco will present its plan at Thursday night's consultation and will take questions about the project.

The session will be held at the cole de technologie suprieure on Notre Dame St. W. at 7 p.m. E.T.

Residents can submit briefs or commentsat a public consultation meetingMarch 10.