Glencore, which operates the Horne Foundry in Rouyn-Noranda, has been buying land in the buffer zone since last fall, QMI agency learned. She now owns 10% of the inhabited buildings in this area.
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When Isabelle Courtemanche tried to contact her landlord for minor work on her 4 1/2 apartment, she learned that her building had changed hands. She now had to pay the rent to a tax collector. Then she understood who her new owner was by hearing the news.
“I want my boy to play in white snow, not black,” she explained. There we have the impression that we have to leave the country. Even though they say the delay is still big, it raises concerns. If they want to demolish here, there’s a reason.
Less than a month ago, around 200 Rouyn-Noranda families learned from the media that they needed to find new homes. The next day, Quebec confirmed that multinational Glencore would pay for the acquisition of 82 buildings in the Notre-Dame neighborhood near the foundry. The government has also pledged to invest $58 million to take that step and build a new neighborhood.
However, as of October, four buildings in the area to be demolished have been included as Glencore properties on the Rouyn-Noranda Municipal Valuation List. Two of the buildings are ahead of the original deadline for receiving approval from the Environment Ministry in November.
The company had previously acquired four more buildings on Jan. 1, 2019, a few months before the release of public health data on arsenic impregnation, which was four times higher in children in the Notre-Dame neighborhood than in a control group in Amos.
The multinational group already owns 10% of the 79 inhabited buildings in the planned buffer zone with a total of 22 residential units. It should also negotiate with some of its employees.
Mrs Courtemanche’s neighbor Suzanne Meunier has to move for the second time because of the activities of the Horne foundry. The building where the 64-year-old lady lived on 6th Street has fallen during previous home buyouts.
“Hires that meet [à mes besoins] are 800-900 piasters. I can’t pay more than $600. You talk to me about it and I just want to cry. If I have to move, I’ll move, but on my terms,” said the social security agency with tears in her eyes.
scenario prepared?
For FRAPRU spokeswoman Véronique Laflamme, “this indicates that the company has prepared for this scenario. One gets the impression that the plan is to cater more to the needs of the multinationals than to those of the community.”
She urges tenants “not to sign anything on the corner of a table because they think they have no choice.”
“Tenants must be instructed not to accept anything individually, even if they no longer have the same owner,” Ms Laflamme said. What tenants currently have is weight in numbers. People need to come together and do this together to be successfully insured and not be fooled.
She suggests tenants “could require the government to make a specific commitment to a project,” for example by creating a “non-profit housing association.”
Mixed feelings
Isabelle Courtemanche is relieved to have to move her family away from the Horne Foundry. Her neighbor says she’s scared. Both are concerned about the lack of detail on how tenants will be relocated and compensated. And finding a new home in a city where the vacancy rate is 0.8% and the breakeven point is 3%.
Ms. Meunier is on the list from the city housing office, along with 165 other people waiting for cheap rent. “There’s 3 to 5 years of waiting, I didn’t leave here. They are in no hurry to call me, the others, ”she expected.
For its part, the City of Rouyn-Noranda was aware that the Horne Foundry was already acquiring homes under a voluntary property buyback program that had been in place for several years. She also confirms that the Department for Communities and Housing had announced to the local council on March 6 that it would apply for a buffer zone to be established in Glencore.
The city must announce that the owners of the buffer zone who have sold their apartment since March 16 are entitled to the compensation provided for this, unlike those who completed transactions before that date.
As of press time, the Horne Foundry had not responded to requests for clarification on its intentions to purchase land as early as last fall.