Plateau residents will finally have their questions about the Baldwin Park pool answered at a public info session, Plateau-Mont-Royal Mayor Luc Rabouin announced at Tuesday night’s borough council meeting, the first since the summer break.

The meeting, which will discuss the move of the pool to the north end of the park, will take place on Sept. 25 at 7 p.m. at the Maison de la culture du Plateau-Mont-Royal. 

This is typically where borough council meetings take place, but exceptionally, Tuesday's meeting was moved to the mayor's office due to problems with air conditioning at the Maison de la culture.

Three out of the first four questions from the public were about the redevelopment of the pool, following which Rabouin barred any further questions on the topic. 

The Baldwin Park pool has been closed since 2021. Now, the borough says the existing site is contaminated and the land is sinking. They're planning to rebuild at the north end of the park instead, between Marie-Anne and Mont-Royal streets.

Annick Poitras, who lives steps away from the new location, expressed concern that the land around her home would sink too.

Poitras said she and her building’s co-owners have already spent $50,000 on damages from 2018, when the extreme heat caused their triplex to sink into the East Plateau’s loose, clay soil.

Rabouin responded that the soil in the north end of the park was superior to that of the old site, but said that the borough’s technical experts would be at the Sept. 25 meeting to present more details. 

When contacted for comment, a spokesperson for the borough said that presentation will include a status report and a preliminary schedule for the project. The meeting will also be recorded and available online.

Following that meeting, residents will have two weeks to submit their comments. But in a back and forth with Marie-Hélène Champoux, who presented a citizen-led list of eight recommendations for the park, Rabouin rejected the call for greater public participation.

“It depends on the project, it depends on the issues," Rabouin said. "Sometimes it’s possible, sometimes less so. For the whole park it’s more possible. For the pool, it’s going to be hard.”

For Julie Thériault, who expressed concern about the lack of public information on the project, that meeting is long overdue.

“We’re like summer private detectives, trying to find information.”

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