Center L’Équilibre: the felling of trees for a parking lot denounced by citizens

Tree cutting began on Tuesday morning, after fencing was put up last week when construction resumed.

Unibec is responsible for the construction work, at a cost of $16 million, after the demolition and excavation phase were completed this winter in the former prison, which will be transformed into a crisis centre.

The parking lot, which should have approximately 45 spaces, was already part of the sketches presented when the project was announced in April 2021.

Residents of rue Lafontaine, located opposite the land where the parking lot will be developed, did not expect Tuesday morning to see large mature trees being felled, while several trees appear on the sketches presented.

Éric Leduc, a citizen who lives on the street, mobilized with a dozen other residents of the area. They arrested the municipal councilor for the district, Mireille Jean, and the candidate of Québec solidaire in Chicoutimi-Le Fjord, Adrien Guibert-Barthez.

Éric Leduc was saddened to see the trees he saw growing in front of his home fall under the workers’ chainsaws.

” I feel like crying a little bit, I have a little shake on the inside. Me, I’ve been living on the street for 30 years. Those trees, they were quite a bit smaller than that when I arrived. It’s sad, it’s sad. »

Councilor Mireille Jean came to the scene in the afternoon and tried to have the cutting of the trees suspended, after discussions with the contractor.

The cuts were then interrupted for a while. They resumed after verifications, since the work had obtained all the municipal authorizations to go ahead.

The Director General of the Municipal Housing Office (OMH) of Saguenay, Éric Gauthier, also went on site to meet the citizens. L’OMH is behind the organization Logement Plus, which is piloting the mental health center project.

They did promise us that they would replant others, we’ll see, reported Éric Leduc. But there, it is the accomplished fact. They can’t do anything, contracts are awarded, permits are granted.

Obligation to build a parking lot

Large cedars, located to the right of the old prison, were also cut down. The next trees to be cut have been identified with a paint mark. Some large trees will however be spared, as well as the trees located below the ground.

Twenty trees will be cut in total, according to theOMH. The organization claims to be sensitive to the situation and that everything has been done to save as many trees as possible, but that the development of a parking lot is required by Saguenay because of the fifty rooms and transitional apartments. planned in the project.

Depending on municipal regulations, there is a number of parking spaces required in relation to the size of the project explained Adam Boivin, Deputy Director General of theOMH Saguenay.

L’OMH would rather have favored other options than providing a parking lot, if that had been possible.

” If we weren’t obliged, we obviously wouldn’t have done it. But the rules oblige us, the need for parking is necessary there for the clientele, for the professionals who will be at the health center, too. So there will be plenty of people going to work. »

Several trees will be planted to compensate for the felled trees, assures the organization.

A reflection on urban planning and mobility

If the municipal councilor Mireille Jean could not stop the felling of trees, she nevertheless believes that the situation must lead to a broader reflection on urban planning regulations in Saguenay.

I think that we have to do some serious thinking, because, for the moment, what is proposed complies with urban planning regulations. But the urban planning regulations, perhaps we should review them, precisely to ensure that parking lots, when they are provided for in the city center, that they are provided for in their entirety and not à la carte as we are seeing she lamented.

The mobility of the city center must be more thought out, believes the one who is also president of the advisory committee of urban planning of Saguenay and that of Chicoutimi.

” How do we do mobility in our city center? It must be redesigned precisely to avoid, when we have green spaces, or natural heritage as we have here, that it ends up being in danger because the regulations require parking. »

Adrien Guibert-Barthez, candidate for Québec solidaire in Chicoutimi-Le Fjord, believes that the felled trees are part of the history of the city center.

I find it completely absurd, completely unacceptable that we shave trees that are over 40 years old, trees that are part of the history of Chicoutimi and that we cut them down to finally create another parking lot in Chicoutimi, that has no common sense he denounced, after going there to meet the citizens.

He criticizes that the conservation efforts of the old prison, built in 1929, have not been applied equally to the landscape. If we managed to keep part of the wall of the old prison for a historical reason, we should be able to keep some trees for the same reason he believes.