‘We are building entire neighbourhoods,” says Mayor Boyer, highlighting the renewal of the area
A new municipal community centre in one of Laval’s more disadvantaged neighbourhoods was officially declared open earlier this month by officials from the city as well as community activists who had long urged Laval to move forward with the project.
The Centre communautaire Simonne-Monet-Chartrand is located on Souvenir Blvd. on the boundary that separates the city’s Chomedey and l’Abord-à-Plouffe neighbourhoods.
Designed to primarily serve residents of the nearby Val-Martin social housing district, the community centre (costing $17 million, not including the housing) was conceived to fit in snugly with a seven-storey subsidized residential building.
Old replaced with new
Completion of the project also marked the culmination of the first phase of a major overhaul of the Val-Martin neighbourhood, which was started by former Laval mayor Marc Demers and continued under Mayor Stéphane Boyer.
At one time, Val-Martin was notorious for its run-down and mould-infested subsidized housing units, many of which were condemned and demolished.
And indeed, a certain number of the old units can still be seen on nearby streets, boarded over and abandoned, as new units (paid for largely with sums from higher levels of government) are gradually built to replace them.
Phase One completed
According to a press release issued by the City of Laval, this was the conclusion of the first of several phases to revitalize Val-Martin.
It was a process that was kickstarted in 2016 by the municipal housing department (Office municipal d’habitation de Laval OMHL), in conjunction with the Société d’habitation du Québec (SHQ) and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp (CMHC). In all, 359 new social housing units will have been completed when all is said and done.
The centre was named after labor activist, feminist writer and pacifist Simonne Monet-Chartrand. In addition to her social activism, she was married to Quebec labor leader Michel Chartrand.
A multifunctional place
Conceived to encourage inclusion, creativity and communal living, the centre includes focused facilities for youths and families, a food bank and a community kitchen, a large communal gathering space, multifunctional rooms, as well as interior spaces for dancing and other types of artistic and cultural events.
With the task of building now accomplished, the City of Laval is seeking to have the Centre communautaire Simonne-Monet-Chartrand certified LEED Gold as an internationally-recognized, environmentally-sustainable facility. Worth noting is that the centre was designed to be easily accessible by pedestrians and by public transit.
“Taking into consideration the scarcity of affordable housing, the inauguration of the Simonne-Monet-Chartrand community centre demonstrates that Laval acts decisively to create living spaces that are accessible, sustainable and unifying,” said Mayor Stéphane Boyer.
‘Building neighbourhoods’
“This project demonstrates our willingness to go higher than the simple construction of housing,” he continued. “We are building entire neighbourhoods where apartments, services and meeting spaces are side by side. With our partners, we are setting down the bases for an exemplary revitalization that restores dignity, hope and a sense of belonging to the families of Val-Martin, and, more widely, to the entire community in Laval.”
“The centre is much more than just a building,” said the centre’s executive-director, Noémie Barolet. “Our vision is a clear one: to make Chomedey a neighbourhood where you can grow. With the Centre Simonne-Monet-Chartrand, we are laying down a cornerstone to get there, by wagering on the strength of the collective, along with citizen creativity and solidarity.”
A ‘magnificent project,’ says opposition
The project’s completion received praise not only from the mayor’s side of the Laval city council chamber (it’s located just within the boundaries of l’Abord-à-Plouffe councillor Vasilios Karidogiannis’s district), but also from Claude Larochelle, leader of the Parti Laval (the official opposition).
“It’s a magnificent project,” Larochelle said in an interview with The Laval News, while adding that the city chose to locate the centre in the best possible place where it was most needed. “This is a place where a project like this was most needed. That said, my hat’s off to a good project in the right location.”
