Institute of the Deaf and Dumb | Superpowers! 1000 housing units (finally) proposed

This heritage gem has been abandoned for almost 10 years.

With its roof eaten away by rust and its advanced state of decrepitude, it well illustrates in spite of itself the consequences of bureaucratic tatouage.

But here is excellent news: the Institute for the Deaf and Dumb could soon have a new life. Its owner, the Société québécoise des infrastructures (SQI), will launch a call for proposals this Wednesday to redevelop the site, I learned.

Finally !

We are talking here about a gigantic project, a stone’s throw from the Sherbrooke metro, on the Plateau Mont-Royal. An ultracentral location.

The government’s real estate arm suggests building 1,000 new homes there, preserving at least two of the seven historic gray stone pavilions.

Unlike other poorly put together calls for proposals, such as those for the former Blue Bonnets racetrack or Voyageur Island, this one seems solid to me¹.

All the “winning conditions”, pardon the cliché, seem to be present. The roles have been well defined between the two levels of government: Quebec, which is selling the site, and Montreal, which will grant the permits. A large place will be given to private developers. Public funding is already being studied to include hundreds of social housing units.

Everyone’s objective: to speed up the study of the file as much as possible, using new “superpowers” ​​provided for by law, and to reduce administrative fuss to a minimum.

This is why I am optimistic.

The Institute, for those who know a little about the Plateau, is located in a quadrangle between Saint-Denis, Cherrier, Berri and Roy streets. The congregation of the Sisters of Charity, servants of the poor, settled there in 1882, before leaving the premises in the 1960s and 1970s.

Quebec bought the site in 1979 to house employees of the health network, and all these beautiful people (or almost all) left in 2015.

It was later that it became very complex.

The City of Montreal took a partial reserve on the site between 2018 and 2020, in the hope of creating social housing there. In vain. The SQI then carried out a series of structural and geotechnical analyses.

The process has been frustratingly slow. So much so that Liza Frulla, who directs the Institut de tourisme et d’hôtellerie du Québec (ITHQ), located a stone’s throw away, launched a heartfelt cry in the pages of The Press in April 2023. “With all this potential, I can’t believe that in Montreal, we’re letting it waste away,” she denounced.².

What has happened since then?

Several realizations, according to what I understand. Both in the government of François Legault and in the administration of Valérie Plante.

Quebec has finally recognized the existence of a housing crisis, after having denied it for a long time. For two years, one reform has not waited for the other.

The old AccèsLogis program, considered too cumbersome and ineffective, was replaced by the Quebec Affordable Housing Program (PHAQ). The change aims to accelerate the development of projects and finance only those which have reached maturity. We are starting to see results.

Quebec also granted cities a series of “superpowers” ​​as part of its Bill 31. Basically, they make it possible to accelerate the approval of residential projects, by skipping the often fateful step of citizen referendums.

Montreal, for its part, has softened its positions. Among other things, the City has watered down its old “20-20-20 regulation”, which was very restrictive and shunned by the construction industry. Its revised version gives a little more flexibility to developers in terms of including social housing.

In the case of the Institut des Sourdes-Muettes, the Plateau borough will use the new “superpowers” ​​granted by Quebec to bypass any referendum request that could block the project.

In addition to these legislative and regulatory reliefs, both in Quebec and Montreal, everyone “talked” to each other instead of confronting each other. This was confirmed to me by several sources.

The City and the provincial government have agreed on the main parameters of the project. This communion made it possible to launch a call for proposals that was not too restrictive, to the satisfaction of all parties involved.

“We want to leave room for creativity, we don’t want to set too many limits,” the mayor of the Plateau, Luc Rabouin, summarized to me in an interview.

The sale of the site was entrusted to the Landerz firm. The municipal assessment amounts to 21.4 million. The SQI could, however, accept a lower price if the project submitted maximizes the number of housing units.

This price reduction would constitute a form of government contribution to the project.

Quebec is also immediately considering partially financing 200 social or affordable housing units through the PHAQ. Or take part in a joint venture or another type of partnership. A stake that could be worth tens of millions of dollars.

A major incentive for any potential buyer.

One thing is clear: “It will take densification to restore value to this building,” Simon G. Boyer, president of the Landerz firm, which is leading the transaction, told me.

Some of the seven buildings will undoubtedly be demolished. The successful buyer will be able to construct new buildings on the site. A fairly high height is even envisaged on the southern portion of the land.

We could think of a tower of around twenty floors, equivalent to that of the few surrounding buildings, located around the Sherbrooke metro station.

The objective is to build hundreds of affordable or “off-market” housing units on the site, including the renovation of heritage buildings. The rest of the apartments can be rented or sold depending on industry prices. It is this portion which will guarantee a certain profitability threshold for the project.

In short: here is a call for proposals with extra-large parameters, sprinkled with goodwill and seasoned with possible public investments in social housing. A project which will interest, I have the impression, several important players. Perhaps even unusual consortia, between the private sector and the community.

Results of the races: January 30.

1. Read the editorial “Let’s Stop Going in Circles at Blue Bonnets”

2. Read the article “Institut des Sourdes-Muettes: “I can’t believe that in Montreal, we’re letting it waste away””