At the corner of rue Beaubien and la 2e Avenue, in Montreal, a red brick building shelters the historic shoemaking St-Marc. For four decades, customers have been entering it with shoes with damaged soles, handbags to repair and other big and small challenges for shoemakers Jacques Parent and his son, Olivier.
But all this ends: on July 17, Mr. Parent will shut down his business. Her son will package the equipment for uncertain future use. A dispute resulting from the demolition of a building will cause the closure of the well-known business in Rosemont – La Petite-Patrie in a few days. The file prompted the borough to review its procedures – but too late to save small businesses.
It is the gaping hole next to the shoe repair shop which explains the closure of the business. In 2014, the borough authorized – without internal audit – the demolition of the duplex that adjoined that of Jacques Parent. The co-owner of the demolished building, Richard Lalonde, has not rebuilt since (the borough refused his plans), thus leaving the west wall of the shoemaker exposed to the weather.
“These problems have worn my father out for more than six years,” explains Olivier Parent, fourth generation shoemaker. “My parents, they are 70 years old. My father has been supposed to be retired for five years. He no longer feels like working. There is no longer a love for the job he had before. “
My father worked all his life to build this workshop, then have a beautiful house. It was his pension fund, it was his retirement. The borough’s inaction robbed him of his retirement.
Before demolishing his building in 2014, Richard Lalonde and his partner obtained a permit from the borough. An engineer signed a report recommending the destruction of the building. He noted that the building “does not [pouvait] be kept in this state ”and recommended“ immediate demolition ”.
The borough accepted this report, and Mr. Lalonde’s building was destroyed. In 2017, the show The bill (Radio-Canada) presented the testimony of experts who thought that the engineer’s report should not have convinced the borough so easily.
This file prompted the borough to modify its regulations. It is now mandatory that “a study be prepared by a professional identifying the risks [de démolition] and the measures to be taken to limit them ”. But above all: the applicant for the demolition permit is now required to protect the party wall.
Unsuccessful steps
Since the demolition of the adjacent duplex, Jacques Parent has multiplied the procedures and complaints, without success. He sued at the start of the case, but ultimately decided to throw in the towel.
“When they tore down the wall next to it, it made the house here unsaleable, because no one [veut] buy a house with a half-destroyed wall, ”explains Olivier Parent, who grew up in the apartment above the workshop with his parents. “It is 14 degrees in the house in winter. “
Richard Lalonde, who claims to have proposed different solutions to the Parent, will now buy Mr. Parent’s duplex. “I didn’t want to buy it, their building, but it was to help [à régler] the prosecution, “he said. In the seller’s declaration, the deterioration problems alleged by the Parent do not appear.
Mr. Lalonde and his partner own the building occupied by the Chez Roger bar. The latter announced in April that it was closing its doors, in particular because it was unable to agree on a new lease. This week, the Chez Roger bistro, adjoining the bar, announced that it had bought the business, which will therefore allow it to continue its activities.
Passive rounding?
Olivier Parent admits that the “coup de grace” that led to the closure was confinement. However, he finds that the borough could have done more to help. “My father worked all his life to build this workshop, then have a beautiful house. It was his pension fund, it was his retirement, he says. The borough’s inaction robbed him of his retirement. “
François Croteau, mayor of Rosemont – La Petite-Patrie, “finds it unfair that [l]’accuses of having done nothing’. He replied that, in the case of a private conflict between two owners, the borough cannot intervene. “We accompanied the owner of the shoe repair shop for months to help him find the right legal means to assert his rights with the neighboring owner,” he said.
But Olivier Parent remains bitter. “Mr. Croteau keeps the speech of favoring bicycle transport, pedestrians. We answer these questions: we are a business that repairs shoes for people who walk. “
According to Danielle Pillette, associate professor at UQAM and expert in urban planning, this case could in any case have been avoided with better regulations. She pointed out that demolition regulations in other Montreal boroughs prevent similar situations from occurring. In Outremont, for example, land reuse must first be authorized. In the Southwest, a committee must analyze the oppositions to the demolitions before authorizing them.
For Jacques Parent, it is time to turn the page. At his age, he no longer feels like working, he says. Olivier Parent hopes for his part to continue practicing his father’s trade in another place, but he has not yet found a place to settle. That said, even if he does, he says it will not be the same for him. “I will never have the configuration I have here. I didn’t want a shoemaking workshop, I wanted my father’s workshop. It was important to me. “
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