Montreal buys up slum buildings

The City of Montreal says two slum apartment complexes in Ahuntsic have been bought by a private developer and the island's housing corporation, which will convert them into condominiums and social housing.  

Private promoter Groupe Tyron and Montreal's municipal housing corporation, Société d'habitation et de développement de Montréal (SHDM), bought Place de l'Acadie and Place Henri-Bourassa in Ahuntsic for $14.8 million.

The buildings will be torn down and rebuilt as condominiums and affordable housing, Montreal Mayor Gérald Tremblay said Wednesday.

The complexes, which house about 565 dwellings, couldn't continue to exist in their current state "because of the unacceptable squalor in which residents were living there," he said at a news conference. "We owed it to find an appropriate solution."

The city said it will cover the approximately $600,000 in costs to relocate tenants while the construction work gets underway.

The borough of Ahuntsic has issued nearly a thousand tickets to former owner Sadok Sagman for alleged building code violations, and the municipality is owed about $18,000 in unpaid fines.

That debt was an influencing factor in the sale, city officials said.

According to city records, the buildings were a source of constant complaints about bug infestations, mould and decrepit conditions.

Montreal's 10 housing inspectors have spent more than 2,000 hours in the last three years investigating complaints at these two complexes, the city said.

The buildings will eventually be razed to make room for a brand-new development, including condominiums and affordable housing, Tremblay said.

"I want to guarantee all families living at Places L'Acadie and Henri-Bourassa that the new project will include enough social housing units to make room for all current tenants who want to return to live there," he said.

"They will find new lodgings, corresponding to their needs. Our challenge is to finally create a quality environment."

Housing activist Dominique Perrault said that's not enough to reassure low-income families living in the complexes who need affordable housing.

"Of course they say there will be social housing, but we have no guarantee of that," said Perrault, who works with the Ahuntsic-Cartierville Housing Committee.

"You're talking about a private landlord."