Montreal, QC: Condo Projects Under Fire

from the bourgeois press:



It was a true Montreal moment.

A condo project in the city’s East end was defaced with the line, ”I can’t pay rent,” which was subsequently defaced by “101″ – a reference to the province’s language laws.

I thought of that sign I spotted months ago, after learning that yet another mid-priced condo project went up in smoke this morning.

Fire hits the Dandurand St. development – photo: Phil Carpenter, Gazette

The fire hit a project that developer Idevco was transforming from an old body shop into a 12-unit condo building. I wrote about that project in 2010, when new condos – priced up to $300,000 - were being started in record numbers.

For sure, the cause of Tuesday’s fire is still unknown. But over the last two year’s it’s been clear that a growing number of these developments – especially in traditionally working class areas like Ahuntsic, Rosemont, and Hochelaga Maisonneuve - seem to be getting hit by arsonists.

A Hochelaga Maisonneuve project hit last year by arsonists left behind the message “brûle condo brûle.” At the time, people in the neighbourhood suspected that the arsonist opposed the gentrification of the area, as developers search for the remaining plots of cheap land in Montreal. With all the focus on development, there’s been little discussion of the impact new condos have had on renters in these areas.

Police have not said that any of these fires are connected.

But it makes me wonder whether today’s fire in Rosemont - followed by another blaze that torched a condo project in Ahuntsic – are the end result of a similar sentiment