$8.1M to expand and protect the Saint-Jacques Cliff ecoterritory
The green strip of the Saint-Jacques cliff.
The City of Montreal has entered into a promise to purchase with a view to acquiring a building located at 6336 and 6340, rue Saint-Jacques, at a cost of $8.1 million. The purchase of this land will complete the acquisitions necessary for the development of the future entrance to the nature park of the ecoterritory of the Saint-Jacques cliff, located in the borough of Côte-des-Neiges-Notre-Dame-de -Grace (CDN-NDG).
“This is great news. I underline the involvement of citizens in this file. The cliff ecoterritory nature park is a place that the citizens of NDG have made their own, says CDN-NDG Borough Mayor Gracia Kasoki Katahwa. It’s a green space where a neighborhood life emerges. It was important for me to promote the development of this space.
The Mayor points out that these investments will be used to better protect the biodiversity of the ecoterritory since it is not fully developed, causing people to walk on the plants and hinder revegetation efforts. Also, the development of the nature park will make it possible to better structure active travel between the boroughs.
“Ultimately, we want a footbridge that spans Highway 20 to be built and accessible to pedestrians and cyclists. In doing so, this would improve connectivity between the different boroughs and allow people from the Southwest who wish to travel to do so through our borough and vice versa, which would allow NDG citizens to go to the Lachine Canal by bike or to foot, for example.”
She adds that this project will have positive consequences for Saint-Jacques Street since it will allow economic revitalization and significant commercial investments.
The creation of this new 60-hectare nature park has been underway since 2018 in the space freed up by the reconstruction of infrastructure in the sector of the Turcot interchange and the old marshalling yard. The promise to purchase for 6336 and 6340 Saint-Jacques Street is on the table until July 2023. It is conditional on the results of the due diligence regarding titles, soil quality and building components.
