Farewell Vincelli's Garden Centre

Farewell Vincelli's Garden Centre, they're gonna build a 250 unit condo complex on this land. It's Vincelli's land so they can do what they want with it, but that doesn't mean I like it. In fact, we are inundated with condo development, every spare lot is getting its own condo... and, of course, municipal government likes condos, it's much needed tax revenue. I was at Vincelli's Garden Centre an hour ago and there isn't much left of the place. Farewell Vincelli's, an institution in this area for the last 75 or 100 years...

This will be demolished for more condos

I'm not saying that this building (it's the Village Shopping Plaza located on the corner of Robert Burns and Cote St-Luc Road), and another in front of it, are now or ever were attractive but there was a restaurant here and other businesses, plus offices on the upper floors (not visible here). People worked here, socialized here, bought stuff and sold stuff, had clothes made here, had their hair done here, bought food here, had a daycare here, sold antiques here, had a life here. You can't keep every building; out with the old and in with the new. But had this building been maintained it would still be a viable part of our community. But the land is worth more than what the present building was bringing in. There is also an empty lot for sale across the street (Westover and Robert Burns) from the Terrasse Robert Burns Restaurant that is also for sale. The empty lot, like this building, has a Hydro Electric pylon running across it. Great view from your living room window. 

On one level we are condo-saturated; on another level we are building condos for foreigners to buy and in some cases not to inhabit but to sit empty. Some of these condos will be Airbnb, party time places for tourists but not a way to build our community.  

What a dump.

This is all falling apart.

Buildings on the left and right will be demolished; that's a condo across the street.

October walk to Meadowbrook Golf Course

We don't need more condos, we have enough of them. What we need is to preserve the little bit of nature that we have left in the city. Here are some photographs of the short walk to Meadowbrook Golf Course; last summer the sides of the road were stripped of many of the trees that made this a pleasant walk, but nature is resilient, it is slow but nature is returning. Of course, there is a developer lusting after every square inch of land they can get their hands on, they want to build more cheaply constructed condos. We need to protect whatever land we have left, land that hasn't been turned into these monstrous condo buildings.  

 

Walking to Meadowbrook Golf Course

I've deleted a rant and substituted the following more reasoned and watered down commentary: most of the trees on this stretch of Cote St. Luc Road have been cut down, this is the road that ends at Meadowbrook Golf Course. The town of Cote St. Luc is about as soulless a suburb as you can find so no wonder they've destroyed this last bit of country-like area; developers won't rest until they've built condos on every square inch of land. There were alternatives to cutting down trees in this area, the best would have been to just leave things as they were. I am not convinced by the signs warning people of falling trees, or if the branch of a tree did fall then does that warrant cutting down most of the trees in this area? Well, folks, we'll see if they plant a single tree for every tree they've cut down which is what they said was their plan.

Now compare the road as it was with my photographs of what it looks like now:

Here is Google Street View over a twelve year period, 2007 to 2019: https://www.google.com/maps/@45.4564534,-73.6684001,3a,75y,208.22h,94.22t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sY1druHKghkiV9eiUA42kKQ!2e0!5s20070901T000000!7i3328!8i1664

Here is the road today: