Further public consultation on a proposed new Montreal MLB ballpark is needed before the city will sign off on any plans, as officials say they also want to see more concrete details on a Peel Basin facility.
The city of Montreal has a public consultation office used to gauge citizen feedback to proposed projects, either through hearings or public consultation meetings that includes the presentation of the project and public comments. The Office de consultation publique de Montréal has been evaluating the future of the Bridge-Bonaventure neighborhood, which could include a new Montreal MLB ballpark in the Peel Basin area. But after a thorough discussion of that future, the office is now recommended that a proposed new Montreal MLB ballpark be subject to its own public-consultation process. The proposal has generated opposition, with half the respondents to an online poll against the project–and half of those respondents strongly opposed to the project. From CTV News:
It also said that the OPCM was not in a position to decide on the wisdom of the stadium project because the proposal presented during the public consultations did not include important and relevant information on the project.
“The (OPCM) considers that it would be irresponsible to decide on this project on the basis of the information available to it. This is a major project for the City of Montreal, the size and breadth of which require that impacts be measured in various ways. No study measuring economic, social and environmental impacts has not been brought to the attention of the commission.”
“The commission believes that the installation of a baseball stadium in the Bridge-Bonaventure sector should be the subject of an independent consultation and be analyzed on the basis of a more developed project,” the OPCM added, noting that other sporting installations such as Percival Molson Stadium and the Jarry Tennis Stadium were subject to project-specific public consultations.
Currently a new Montreal ballpark is foreseen as part of a plan that would see the Tampa Bay Rays play the first half of the season in a new Tampa Bay ballpark and the second half in Montreal. However, a a new Montreal ballpark is not necessarily contingent on the Rays landing a new ballpark. In what’s being discussed in MLB circles as a certainly, expansion once the Oakland and Tampa Bay ballpark situations are resolved could be on the agenda for the Montreal baseball investment group led by Montreal businessman Stephen Bronfman.
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