Côte-des-Neiges merchants upset over repeated construction work

Some merchants on Chemin de la Côte-des-Neiges say back-to-back construction projects on the street are killing business, and they blame the city not properly coordinating the roadwork.

During the summer, Chemin de la Côte-des-Neiges was blocked off near the corner of Swail Avenue so that the roads and sidewalks could be fixed.

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"Basically, it killed our business the whole summer,"  said Houssam Dib, co-owner of a family-run restaurant called Kabab.

"They finished at the beginning of September and just last week, they came back,"

This week, workers ripped up the street again, this time to carry out electrical work.

"The construction guy came in and told me... that the city should have done it during the summer...but [the company] was busy and didn't have time in the summer," Dib said.

The City of Montreal told CBC News that the Commission des Services électriques de Montréal (CSEM) was not available until the fall because it was working on other projects over the course of the summer.

"We mutually agreed to proceed with the paving to avoid penalizing the merchants and residents. The presence of many institutions, including a university, in the area was also taken into account in the decision to restore the area for back-to-school time in September," said city spokesman Philippe Sabourin.

"It was therefore understood that the CSEM would conduct its work on Thanksgiving."

Back to back work unavoidable, city says

Dib said all of the work should have been coordinated to take place at the same time, rather than setting up a construction zone twice. He said his bottom line is taking a major hit.

"We're like in a prison. There's barriers all over, trucks, bulldozers. So it's affecting me...Since they started the construction, it's slow."

The city maintained that in this case, the back-to-back construction was inevitable.

"We coordinate work with the calendars of all the different contractors. In this case, we could not have reduced the six-week gap between the projects," Sabourin said.

"Getting the sidewalks and roads finished was preferable to having the work on a construction site be interrupted for six weeks."

The $4-million project at the corner of Chemin de la Côte-des-Neiges and Swail Avenue includes building and repaving the sidewalk and street, as well as upgrading and installing traffic lights.