![\"Located](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/cbc.ca\/e76b52504d95fc6b4922154861016254.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\nJulie Desjardins thought her Montreal borough would fight to protect residents.<\/p>\n
But now that Rivi\u00e8re-des-Prairies\u2013Pointe-aux-Trembles has approved plans for a McDonald’s restaurant next door to her home \u2014 after backtracking on strict conditions it intially put in place \u2014 she says the administration is failing to represent residents’ best interests.<\/p>\n
The restaurant is planned for Sherbrooke Street East, at the corner of 36th Avenue. It will include a drive-thru and parking lot that exits onto her residential street, where there is no sidewalk. Desjardins says she is concerned about noise, idling vehicles, odours and increased traffic that could put residents at risk.<\/p>\n
“Residents of the neighbourhood are really angry because we fought this,” she said. “It’s a project that will devalue our homes and jeopardize the safety of the neighbourhood.”<\/p>\n
She said vehicles leaving the drive-thu will exit onto her street, which is used by transit riders walking to and from nearby bus stops. High school students also use the street, she said. Residents launched a petition and have opposed the project since the previous borough administration.<\/p>\n
“We thought that the city was with us, but we understand that they are there for the money,” she said. “It’s a project that does not meet the needs of the borough.”<\/p>\n
The project has been in development for several years, and the borough explored ways to stop it \u2014 a difficult legal move because the property is already zoned for commercial use.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Located on Sherbrooke Street East at the corner of 36th Avenue, the lot contains a building set to be demolished to make way for a McDonald’s restaurant and drive-thru. (Antoni Nerestant\/CBC)<\/p>\n
Council fears legal costs<\/p>\n
Gabrielle Rousseau-B\u00e9langer, the city councillor for the Pointe-aux-Trembles district, said in a statement the borough was forced to proceed cautiously after determining the legal grounds for blocking the project were much weaker than first believed.<\/p>\n
Rousseau-B\u00e9langer said maintaining the borough’s initial refusal in February to allow a drive-thru or access from 36th Avenue would have exposed it to significant legal and financial risk.<\/p>\n
“We simply could not take the risk of gambling with taxpayers’ money,” she said.<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/cbc.ca\/c3c83bb6c2d141853603ced35ae79f10.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n
Borough Mayor Denis Pelletier echoed those concerns, saying the borough’s decision in February to resrict the project was made in good faith, but new legal information meant maintaining that position could have resulted in a costly lawsuit.<\/p>\n
While reversing course, borough officials say they are working to reduce the project’s impact on nearby residents. Rousseau-B\u00e9langer said residents’ concerns about safety and noise remain “completely legitimate” and announced the creation of a good neighbour committee made up of residents, the developer and borough officials to monitor the project.<\/p>\n
Pelletier said the borough has directed its planning department to negotiate binding conditions with the developer, including noise barriers, landscape screens, specialized ventilation systems to reduce cooking odours near neighbouring properties and traffic mitigation measures.<\/p>\n
No worse than gas station, developer says<\/p>\n
Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Taillefer, president of Groupe Immobilier Taillefer, the project’s developer, said in a brief interview the restaurant would have no greater impact on the neighbourhood than a gas station, convenience store or car wash.<\/p>\n
He said noise studies at other McDonald’s restaurants show nearby road traffic generates noise levels comparable to those at the restaurant site. He also praised the borough for reversing what he described as an unlawful limitation on the project.<\/p>\n
Desjardins disagreed. She said traffic generated by the McDonald’s would be far greater than what the previous businesses produced.<\/p>\n
“The drive-thru will definitely increase pollution in the area significantly,” she said, noting a line of idling vehicles would sit beside about six backyards.<\/p>\n
“They’ll basically be able to order their hamburger from their pool!”<\/p>\n
![\"Marie-Claude](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/cbc.ca\/8a06aa01852ecb2d6f00b5d176cbb395.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n
Projet Montr\u00e9al councillor wanted to fight<\/p>\n
Opposition councillor Marie-Claude Baril, the sole Projet Montr\u00e9al representative on council, expressed strong opposition to the project. Her party held the council majority when opposition to the project began, but the borough is now led by Ensemble Montr\u00e9al.<\/p>\n
Baril said a fast-food drive-thru next to residential backyards creates major safety risks on narrow, sidewalk-less streets where local children walk to catch the school bus.<\/p>\n
She criticized the current council for reversing its decision to uphold the demolition committee’s conditions \u2014 which had banned a drive-thru and access via 36th Avenue \u2014 arguing the borough should have stood its ground in court despite the developer’s lawsuit threat.<\/p>\n
“Nobody should have been surprised by the threat of legal action,” Baril said. “The council understood the risks, and at the time they appeared willing to defend their decision. So I was really shocked and disappointed when we backed off.”<\/p>\n
While acknowledging that formal legal avenues to stop the project have passed, Baril vowed to stand alongside local citizens as they continue mobilizing to demand maximum mitigation measures.<\/p>\n
“At the end of the day, our job as elected officials is not to do what is easiest \u2014 it’s to do what we believe is right for the community we serve,” Baril said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Julie Desjardins thought her Montreal borough would fight to protect residents. But now that Rivi\u00e8re-des-Prairies\u2013Pointe-aux-Trembles has approved plans…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":153847,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[49806,6267,12465,50,11963,49808,49809,49807,36848],"class_list":["post-153846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-montreal","tag-36th-avenue","tag-city-councillor","tag-desjardins","tag-montreal","tag-montreal-borough","tag-nearby-residents","tag-pointe-aux-trembles","tag-sherbrooke-street","tag-the-project"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}