Terre Faubert : city authorizes demolition of buildings

In August, Châteauguay City Council authorized the demolition of the buildings at 292 boulevard Saint-Jean-Baptiste on grounds of public safety. The land, also known as Terre Faubert, is the site of a potential residential development project.

Translation Amanda Bennett

Four buildings will be demolished: an uninhabited, boarded-up house, a barn and two sheds. Mayor Eric Allard cited the presence of “squatters and vandals and a heightened fire risk” as reasons for demolishing the buildings. The demolition committee was in favour of the demolition. The committee had to restart its deliberations this summer following a technical error.

The Action Patrimoine organization opposed the demolition because the buildings were said to date from 1890. The organization asked that a decision be made only after the heritage analyses, in particular the inventory of the MRC de Roussillon’s built heritage, had been completed.

In the spring, the MRC told the newspaper that it had just completed the “pre-inventory” by identifying all the buildings built before 1940 on its territory. The building at 292 boulevard Saint-Jean-Baptiste is part of this pre-inventory, “but it is too early to determine its heritage interest, if any,” said Anne-Louise Milot, Communications Director at the MRC.

The landowner plans to level the site with grass and plant six trees following the demolition. He also plans to develop the parcel of land alongside Highway 30, between Saint-Jean-Baptiste and Pierre-Bourcier boulevards.

The preliminary draft of the special urban development plan presented in June mentions buildings of between two and eight storeys.