Camillien-Houde: Mount Royal cemetery files lawsuit against Montreal
Posted November 26, 2024 6:09 pm.
Last Updated November 26, 2024 6:10 pm.
The Mount Royal cemetery is pursuing legal action against the City of Montreal.
The Mount Royal Cemetery Company says the city’s plan to close Camillien-Houde to vehicles is detrimental to the cemetery’s clients – families and visitors.
BACKGROUND: Mount Royal cemetery threatening legal action over closure of Camillien-Houde to vehicles
“This action is based on historical and legal rights,” the cemetery wrote in a press release. “In 1928, as part of a land exchange agreement to allow the City of Montréal to build a road and create a tramway route on the east side of Mount Royal, the Company was granted a real and perpetual easement for access and passage on what would become Camillien-Houde and Remembrance Roads.”
In September 2023, the Valérie Plante administration announced it would be converting Camillien-Houde, making it accessible only to cyclists and pedestrians by 2027 — part of a redevelopment project that would supposedly add 18,000 square metres of green space. Emergency vehicles would still have access to the route.
“The City’s decision to close Camillien-Houde Road, as part of the redevelopment project for the Camillien-Houde/Remembrance axis, jeopardizes” the right of access, the cemetery argues.
In 2019, the Office de consultation publique de Montréal (OCPM) recommended that traffic stay open on Camillien-Houde but that the road be converted so it has lower speed limits and more room for pedestrians and cyclists.
