Citizens of Dorval Raise the Alarm Over Massive Real Estate Project: “Dorval Deserves Better” LETTER TO THE EDITOR

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

If you haven’t passed through Dorval recently, prepare to be shocked by the scale of destruction caused by the city’s current urban planning strategy. Gigantic condo towers are now rising from the parking lot of the local shopping centre, blocking the views of long-standing residential homes as if Dorval were suddenly being transformed into the next Toronto.

What made Dorval such a pleasant and livable city was precisely its residential charm, calm environment, and abundant greenery. That character is vanishing. On formerly quiet streets like Lepage, houses are now built from edge to edge, leaving no space for nature. Even along the waterfront, once home to peaceful wooded private lots, the city is acquiring land to develop more real estate complexes.

Residents of Dorval are sounding the alarm. Residents are deeply concerned about the urban development plan for the Dorval Avenue sector, which includes areas currently under review. These include the traffic circle with its missing links for pedestrians and cyclists, the Herron Road commercial strip with IGA and Jean Coutu (now rezoned to 8 stories), the Dorval Gardens shopping centre (zoned at 12 stories), and the Orval Square where developer NADG plans to erect 12- to 16-story towers. The east side of Dorval Avenue, including the gas station at Carson and the adjacent vacant lot where Place Tevere once stood, is now zoned for 4 stories. Along the Montréal-Toronto Boulevard, the area is zoned for 8 stories, and a building has already been approved on the Boathouse lot with significantly reduced front setbacks.

On its website, NADG, owner of both Dorval Gardens and the Orval Square project, describes the development as a “city within a city.” But this city does not seem to include the services traditionally expected from a community shopping hub. [Link:https://www.nadg.com/property/dorval-gardens]

This type of urban transformation directly contradicts the human-scaled, green, and residential identity of Dorval. It threatens the quality of life, ecological balance, traffic safety, and the social cohesion of a community built on connection and care.

Members are against development that is imposed without dialogue, without long-term thinking, and without respect for the residents who already live here.

Have the families, elders, and youth living near these sites been consulted? Has the dramatic increase in density been measured against its impacts on traffic flow, natural light, access to services, or the progressive loss of green space?

It feels like this project serves short-term profit, not the public interest.

Cities are not built only in square footage they are shaped through meaning, dialogue, and mutual respect.

Residents urge the developer and city officials to listen to the citizens who have spoken clearly: we value a city built on human scale, and we reject a model of top-down, high-density urbanism that disregards the character of our home. This opposition will only grow stronger if no serious revisions or meaningful consultation are undertaken.

Dorval deserves better. And its citizens will not remain silent.