No less than 11 hectares of woodland, including 8 hectares of wetlands, will be destroyed in the Chaudière sector for the tramway project. The City of Quebec will compensate for this loss by protecting other nearby green spaces “for eternity”.
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The Project Office and the Mayor of Quebec took stock, Tuesday, of the establishment of the future Operations and Maintenance Center (CEE) with a size of six football fields and the developments that will be carried out throughout the boiler pole.
The huge garage, next to the IKEA, will be able to accommodate up to 40 trams. This is the “heart of the project”, argued the director of the Project Office, Daniel Genest, stressing the importance of this “essential” infrastructure. The construction of the CEE, which should begin next year, should last between 24 and 36 months.
Preparatory work for the decontamination of the site – a former dump – and deforestation will begin this year in September. The City wishes to offer its private partner (who will be selected following a call for tenders) “virgin” land to erect the future building.
The CEE alone will require the deforestation of 5.2 hectares. Many trees will also be sacrificed in Montée Mendel, but the City will replant 1,260 roadside trees.
Many trees will also be cut down on the land that will host the future Parc-O-Bus (1.7 hectares) as well as the Le Gendre interchange and the cycle-pedestrian path (1.3 hectares). The City has not made a precise count of the number of trees it will have to fell in total in this immense wooded area.
Mayor Bruno Marchand had promised to replace the alignment trees with a ratio of 20 to 1 in the countryside. As for the woodlands, all the lost space will be compensated by an equivalent protected area, he assured, congratulating himself on respecting his electoral commitment.
Woodlots of 4.5 hectares, which already belong to the City in the Chaudière sector, will be preserved forever. These lots, targeted by the former administration for residential and commercial construction in the future district that will grow at the end of the tram line, will now be protected.
The mayor says work on an “exemplary” project in partnership with ministers Geneviève Guilbault and Andrée Laforest. The City also plans to acquire 6.5 hectares of additional green space in the sector belonging to various owners who will be contacted eventually.
“When we add to that the Marais Isabelle (which is already protected), the wetlands to the west, the existing parks and green spaces and those that will be added, that gives 69.71 hectares of protected areas. That represents two and a half times the Domaine de Maizerets, two and a half times the Parc du Bois-de-Coulonge, 126 football fields or two-thirds of the Plains of Abraham,” illustrated Mr. Marchand.
“We are going to add new protected environments, make them available and accessible to citizens so that they can live and walk there. I think citizens are going to be very proud of that sector. We must demonstrate to the citizens that despite the losses, there are enormous gains,” he argued, assuring that the choice of site for the CEE was imposed, after numerous environmental studies.
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The City says it has already obtained all the necessary environmental authorizations – or almost – to carry out the deforestation and decontamination work.
Its private partner, which will be selected following a call for tenders for the construction of the infrastructure, will also have to obtain various authorizations from the Ministry of the Environment in the coming years, as the work progresses. .
The acquisition of all the targeted lots in the sector is almost complete, with the exception of land belonging to Cominar, which is subject to an expropriation procedure.
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The Marchand administration also undertakes to increase its canopy target in the Chaudière sector to 35% (compared to 25% currently) and to 50% in the Cap-Rouge district (whereas it currently stands at 39% ).
As for the destruction of wetlands, deemed inevitable, these will be compensated to the tune of $5 million by the City, which will pay this sum to the Ministère de l’Environnement, as provided for in the Environment Quality Act. The compensation will be used to finance the Program for the restoration and creation of wetlands and bodies of water.
The City is organizing a virtual information and discussion session with the citizens of Cap-Rouge this Wednesday evening, at 7 p.m. Citizens who connect to it will be able to ask their questions at the Project Office.
Reference-www.tvanouvelles.ca