Berku hints at change at St. Luc rail yard

By Joel Goldenberg

Change may be afoot at the St. Luc Canadian Pacific railyards in Côte St. Luc, Councillor Dida Berku hinted at a meeting for her district constituents last Thursday.

The issue came up when a resident questioned the wisdom of Côte St. Luc spending about $6 million of the total $17.3 million for its planned intergenerational aquatic centre. Berku pointed out that two-thirds of the funding is coming from the federal and provincial governments.
The councillor then said that “even the CP lands which we are so concerned about because of all of the noise, pollution, vibrations and inconvenience they cause us, there may be some movement there over the next little while which will free up some land and give us more tax revenue from the CP lands and open up Côte St. Luc. We have to look to the future, that’s all I can say about that. The [intergenerational aquatic] centre will bring young people and revitalize Côte St. Luc.”

To find out if anything is afoot, The Suburban called Breanne Feigel of CP’s public affairs department in Calgary.
“There’s no plans to relocate St. Luc yard operations, I can confirm that,” Feigel said. “The railyard remains an important part of CP’s operations in the Montreal area and services the economy of Montreal. To my knowledge, there’s no agreement in place at this time for a sale of land of any sort. Whether those discussions are happening at a different level, if there is a parcel of land to be sold or reviewed or anything like that, it’s certainly not at a stage where it’s been positioned in that manner in any public forum or officially in any way. Certainly, anything that would happen within the area would not specifically mean that the railyard would be disappearing from Côte St. Luc.”
Indefinitely?

“There’s no plans for relocation,” Feigel repeated. “There is no formal process at this time, certainly not to move the yard in any capacity. If there’s land discussions, it hasn’t hit a point where there’s anything concrete at this time.”