Quebec, Lévis, and surrounding communities could jointly choose the site of future industrial parks to emerge in the region and compensate cities that make less money by forgoing this type of development.
Submitted by Quebec Mayor Bruno Marchand, who is also Chair of the Metropolitan Community of Quebec (CMQ), the idea aims to curb urban sprawl and better protect the natural, agricultural and aquatic environment.
He proclaims loud and clear: “We can no longer develop industrial parks in the same way as before” without giving any thought to the consequences for spatial planning, the environment and mobility. The reflection is initiated with the other elected members of the CMQ.
“We are discussing this among mayors and have a common desire to think about a compensation calculation. It avoids everyone developing their own small sector without thinking about the impact [global]. Everyone can benefit from it,” he explained during a recent press conference.
“This is a measure that we will evaluate. We haven’t gotten to setting it up yet,” he said. Such an equalization mechanism to compensate all cities – or just those that would deprive themselves of hefty tax revenues – has yet to be defined.
An early exit?
His comments on the matter have stayed under the media radar, but they have drawn the attention of some of his colleagues at the CMQ, who believe his departure is premature.
“There have been discussions about the best ways to achieve a healthy distribution of industrial parks in the area of the CMQ, but these are internal discussions for the moment,” said press secretary for the Mayor of Lévis, Gilles Lehouillier.
Saint-Augustin Mayor Sylvain Juneau was visibly uneasy and declined to comment, citing the “closed publicity” surrounding these discussions. “It’s embryonic,” continues the prefect of the MRC of Île-d’Orléans, Lina Labbé.
Only the mayor of Stoneham-et-Tewkesbury, Sébastien Couture, agreed to speak more about it. Visibly seduced by the notion of “compensation”, he even wants to broaden the reflection on the housing that his city deprives itself to better protect Quebec’s main source of drinking water.
“We want to be responsible for the protection of Lake Saint-Charles, but at the tax level we also have obligations to fulfil. We must become fairer. We have to think together and find solutions. We have to go out of the ordinary and invent other models because we have challenges,” says the man who is also prefect of the MRC de la Jacques-Cartier.
great skepticism
The CEO of the Industrial Parks Corporation and Mayor of Sainte-Catherine-de-la-Jacques-Cartier, Pierre Dolbec, is very skeptical. The idea itself isn’t bad, he says, but the application promises to be extremely complex.
“Balance, I have problems with that. I don’t know how it could work without sacrificing one of the two big cities, Quebec or Lévis. You can’t do what he’s proposing without checking the tax system and taxation, it’s impossible. »
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