The Town of Cowansville announced updates regarding the downtown project.
The residential and commercial project named the downtown project was put on hold back in March 2020 due to the pandemic. The project proposes to “purchase and renovate the Domaine du Parc shopping centre. It also includes the construction of 300 housing units, divided into 5 buildings with 8 floors of living space and 2 floors of underground parking lots. All located behind the shopping centre on Boulevard de Dieppe,” wrote the press release from the Town of Cowansville.
In order to go ahead with this project there needs to be input from the public to reach consensus whether this project is wanted or not. Due to health and safety regulations in person meetings are prohibited. Cowansville hired the firm Léger to conduct a survey of all citizens.
“The purpose of the survey was to find out the general opinion of the population, in the most objective way possible,” stated a communication from the firm Léger.
The survey holds no legal significance. It only portrays the opinions of the citizens. Results of the survey demonstrate a large per cent (62) of citizens in favour of the downtown revitalization. An even larger per cent (70) said they did not like the new project because of the height of the buildings.
“The survey show that 62 per cent of Cowansville resident who answer a question are in favour of the downtown project,” explained Sylvie Beauregard, mayor of Cowansville.
However, some citizens are expressing their outrage stating they never received a survey. Some comments expressed the concern that a small town does not need high rise buildings like the city while others stated that it is destroying a natural green space. Although the survey results show there is support for this project the comments of citizens suggest they are very much against it.
In addition to some claiming they did not see the survey very few residents in selected zones will actually get to participate in the vote.
It is unknown when ground will be broken.
Here is Mayor Sylvie Beauregard: