Mile End parking games

Ubisoft’s Mile End offices. Photo by xophe_g via Flickr

Montreal-based gaming giant Ubisoft met with Mile End city councillors early last week to discuss Parcojour zones, a new parking project slated to launch in the neighbourhood by mid-November.

Three hundred and fifty parking spaces will be affected by the new zone, with the borough planning to double the number of residents-only parking spaces in the area, according to Alex Norris, Projet Montréal city councillor for the Mile End district. Parking will cost $2.50 an hour, with a four-hour cap on how long motorists can park in one day.

The new parking regulations were allegedly a cause for concern for Ubisoft, one of the largest employers in the neighbourhood. Borough mayor Luc Ferrandez feared the company would leave its current digs, at the corner of St-Laurent and St-Viateur E., and move to Ahuntsic — which had reportedly been wooing it — due to the loss of free parking for its employees.

However, Marie Claude Bernard, an external communications officer with the firm, confirmed that it recently renewed its lease. While Ubisoft declined an interview with Cult MTL, Bernard said it “was collaborating with the borough on the matter.”

Norris expects a positive outcome. “There’s a lot of good faith on both sides,” he said. “Obviously nobody breaks out the champagne when you start charging a new fee, but from our perspective, it’s a better option to tackle the management of a scarce resource like parking and the intense competition there is between residents and workers.”

Raising money for the borough through parking is something Projet Montréal is doing to avoid increasing central taxes, he said.

“The area of the Plateau is already saturated with cars,” said Norris. “We need to charge for the resource [of parking] and to manage it more efficiently. And of course, our final objective is to encourage people who can to consider other modes of transport to the district.”

Norris explained that St-Viateur is “in the process or revitalization,” with the borough currently pushing to create pedestrian and bike lanes to the nearby Rosemont metro station.

According to an article published in Le Plateau prior to the meeting between Ubisoft and the borough, 70 per cent of Ubisoft employees take public transit to work. Getting the last 30 per cent on board is something Ferrandez hopes to accomplish.

In any case, Norris remains optimistic that both parties “will be able to finetune this initiative [to make] everyone satisfied in the long run.” Mile End, he noted, is a great location for Ubisoft, while the major gaming software employer is equally good for the neighbourhood.

“Economically, their presence has also helped local merchants, put pressure on land values and helped feed off a buzz in the artistic community,” he said. “They are an important part of the neighbourhood.”

According to Tony Sharkey, a Mile End resident and manager at Navarino Café on the corner of St-Viateur W. and Parc, Ubisoft’s presence has an “undeniable impact” on the neighbourhood — especially at lunch time.

“I think most businesses count on them. Not only are they a bunch of young professionals who work very hard in a contemporary world to make decent money, but they need to eat lunch every day,” said Sharkey. “They spread their love around the neighbourhood. They’re aware of their impact and are looking for a variety — like any consumer — and they happen to be in a neighbourhood where that exists.”

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Some Stats about Plateau parking, according to city councillor Alex Norris:

6,200: the total number of reserved parking spaces in the Plateau.
30,000: the number of cars that drive onto and out of the Plateau each day.
200 per cent: the percentage by which some permit parking spaces are oversold.
$10: the maximum you can spend in an afternoon to park in the Plateau under the new Parcojour zoning stytem
4: the number of hours $10 will get you for the day ■