Saint-Leonard residents form citizens’ committee calling on borough to act on flood prevention

A group of residents in Montreal’s Saint-Leonard say not enough action is being taken on flood prevention in the borough and are making their voices heard at a city council meeting Tuesday night.

“The reason why we formed this committee is to get this issue resolved,” said Giuseppe Conte, a property owner in Saint-Leonard.

Montreal saw up to 100 millimetres of rain on July 13 and houses on Belmont Street in Saint-Leonard were particularly affected because they are located in a low-lying area.

He’s among the 10 or so people that have formed the Citizens’ Movement Committee calling on the borough to update its infrastructure.

“Taxes in the industrial sector have gone up by 75 per cent in the last three years and they are getting flooded as bad or worse than the street that we’re standing on right now, de Belmont,” he said. “So we need this issue to get resolved and by telling the citizens to take care of it, adding clapets is not a solution. They have to fix the infrastructure starting with the piping.”

Resident Pat Monaco says he’s fed up of repeated flooding. His home was flooded in August of 2024 and again in July of this year. He does not want to spend any more money fixing the damage.

“I got the same damage and last year I fixed it and it cost me over $100,000 to repair,” he said. “So it’s not worth it for me right now until the city repairs the issue with the streets. I will not repair and I will not rent the unit.”

He says insurance companies and the city are asking them to install anti-backflow valves on the main drain of the house called clapets.

“Right now, I’m not because there’s other my next door neighbours who have done a lot of work that have added 10-11 clapets and water still goes in,” Monaco said. “So it’s really a city issue. It’s something that the city has to do and it’s not our fault anymore.”

In a statement to CityNews, a spokesperson for the borough of Saint-Leonard said: “The borough fully supports citizen engagement around this priority issue, and we are extremely sensitive to the difficulties these citizens are experiencing.”

The borough says the public water and sewer systems, as well as stormwater management, are the responsibility of the city’s Water Department. “The boroughs lack the authority or the budget required to make structural infrastructure improvements,” the statement reads.

“Given this situation, the borough council is making representations to both the city council and the elected official responsible for water, Maja Vodanovic. The latter has agreed to meet with borough elected officials and representatives of the Water Department to share an update on the situation. The borough would like to hold an information session with citizens following this meeting.”

The borough says they have already implemented several actions to help during heavy rain including. At its level, the borough has already implemented several actions to reduce water inputs into the local network during heavy rains:

• raising the rear sidewalks (the part of the sidewalk opposite the curb) and building small water retention basins under the sidewalks on Belmont Street;
• building draining sidewalk overhangs;
• planting 1,300 trees per year since 2021 to facilitate rainwater absorption;
• demineralizing the area;
• amending urban planning regulations that facilitate the installation of cofferdams and the filling of sloping driveways and that regulate new construction to make them more climate-resilient.

The borough also adds that work is currently underway, “including the conversion of Coubertin Park to make it more resilient to heavy rainfall and turn it into a rain-sheltered park,” as well as “implementing flood resilience measures for residents of Rue de Belmont.”