The report of the public consultation on the development of Griffintown contains no recommendations but merely summarizes and categorizes the issues felt by the many citizens who came to speak at the sessions. The Gazette's Michelle Lalonde does a thought experiment and compares Devimco's plans to green developments elsewhere; there's also a sidebar on the area's history which fails to bring into focus how the abandonment of shipping on the Lachine Canal coincided fatally with the city's decision 40 years ago not to allow new residential development in the area.

Coincided? Nobody really wants to say this, but here goes: before Expo 67, Jean Drapeau was allowed to raze Goose Village (aka Victoriatown) and probably would have been happy to go on to raze Griffintown too, but knew that he could only get away with so much. However, choking it off by effectively denying it both residential and industrial use meant that it would die anyway. Now a new generation hopes to profit from this.

This said, though, the key issue has been spotted and speared by Phyllis Lambert. It is not too late to stop City Hall from making a very bad decision to leave the public consultation office out of such a major plan for a central part of the city. This affects all Montrealers, not just those living in or near Griffintown or with sentimental connections there. It's not just a borough issue.

Neath of Walking Turcot Yards has more of this week's links on the issue and La Presse's Yves Boisvert goes contrarian with a rah-rah approach to the development (although his opening implication that nobody really knows the area is cheap stage-setting: lots of people do, and he's only exposing his own ignorance of the issues.) posted at 15:14