The STM told the Gazette Friday it is considering the possibility of using an alternative site for the proposed ventilation station.
The STM told The Gazette Friday that the transit authority is considering the possibility of using an alternative site for the project.
“We are currently in discussions with the Société québécoise des infrastructures (SQI) to evaluate the possibility of re-evaluating a site located on the grounds of the Chambre de jeunesse (youth protection courthouse) at the corner of Bellechasse and Saint-Vallier,” STM spokesperson Amélie Régis wrote by email.
“In 2021, we received a refusal from (the SQI). It is very possible that in the end the analyses are inconclusive and that the current site at 530-532 de Bellechasse St. (the Ly family’s residence) will remain the best option to construct the mechanical ventilation station.”
Régis said studies must be conducted before coming to a decision and that the process could take “a few months.”
In the interim, she said, the STM is “in talks with the family to postpone the date of possession,” originally scheduled for Feb. 1.
Reached Friday afternoon, Trivi Ly said the family’s lawyer informed him this week that the STM offered to postpone the expropriation until summer to give the family more time to find a new home.
The STM did not inform the lawyer it was studying a different site for the ventilation station, according to Ly.
“If they’re seriously considering it, we have a bit more hope we won’t be expropriated,” he said, adding that “it makes no sense. If they have other sites that don’t require expropriation, I don’t see the logic of them saying, ‘We have to take your home.’”
The Ly family has lived in the duplex since 1983. Ly’s parents, who bought the building after moving to Canada from Vietnam in 1979, share the home with him and his sister.
The family received a letter from the STM at the end of April informing them of the expropriation and offering them $696,000 for their home. That amount was reduced to $569,000 after an evaluator visited the premises, an amount Ly says is well below market value and that doesn’t allow the family to find something equivalent in the borough or even in areas farther out.
The STM acknowledged it does not yet have the funds required to construct the ventilation station and that it has only the money needed for the expropriation. Construction is expected to begin in the fall of 2026 “following reception of the next financing cycle (from Quebec).”
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