The UdeM Chair in Landscape and Environment publishes a practical guide to landscape planning, the result of an action-research project conducted with the City of Saint-Constant and the Roussillon RCM.
The Chaire en paysage et environnement de l’Université de Montréal (CPEUM) announces the publication of a brand new guide for elected officials and municipal professionals, as well as anyone interested in the future of landscapes and the quality of living environments.
This publication, entitled Faire le paysage, rêver les cadres de vie: démarche-type de cocréation à l’intention du milieu municipal, contains two complementary pieces of information:
- On the one hand, the guide recounts the main stages in the implementation of an action-research project carried out in partnership with the City of Saint-Constant and the Roussillon regional county municipality (RCM) between 2019 and 2021. The creative and forward-looking processes tested in this context enabled the development of a planning vision that takes into account landscapes and residents’ experiences of them.
- In addition, the publication proposes a "model approach", a general method drawn from the Saint-Constant case study that other Quebec municipalities can draw on to undertake similar projects, adapted to their own realities.
In this way, the authors of the guide hope to provide municipal development stakeholders with the feedback and knowledge they need to develop a vision of planning and development that is sensitive to the collective value placed on landscapes.
The guide is available free of charge on the CPEUM website, for online reading or downloading, at https://paysage.openum.ca/page-daccueil/projets/cocreation-des-paysages-de-la-ville-de-saint-constant/ .
A fruitful partnership with the Ville de Saint-Constant and the MRC de Roussillon
"The project carried out on our territory has enabled us to obtain concrete solutions in response to the demands of citizens, who are looking for more than just a city in which to live, but rather an environment in which it’s good to live and where land use, built heritage and the beauty of the landscape play an important role."
-- Jean-Claude Boyer, Mayor of Saint-Constant
"We are proud of this collaboration, which will have been an opportunity for us to demonstrate our commitment to territorial planning that respects today’s social and environmental challenges. This guide offers a pragmatic and inspiring vision for meeting the challenges of urban densification, active mobility, preservation of natural environments and multifunctional agricultural development."
-- Christian Ouellette, Prefect of the Roussillon RCM and Mayor of Delson
"Listing landscape sensitivities greatly enriches the analysis of development issues and the potential for sustainable transition of territories. It also reveals collective values and aspirations that can inform the search for quality and social acceptability of projects. In short, placing the collective values of landscape at the heart of territorial planning approaches is a guarantee of innovative solutions that benefit all stakeholders."
- Sylvain Paquette, CPEUM graduate and full professor at Université de Montréal’s School of Urban Planning and Landscape Architecture
Who are the guide’s authors?
Sylvain Paquette, Philippe Poullaouec-Gonidec and Charles Bergeron
Credit: Sylvain Paquette (Maïa Cinq-Mars), Philippe Poullaouec-Gonidec (Amélie Philibert, Université de Montréal) and Charles Bergeron (courtesy)
- Sylvain Paquette , Chair in Landscape and Environment and full professor at the Université de Montréal’s School of Urban Planning and Landscape Architecture
- Philippe Poullaouec-Gonidec , Professor Emeritus at the École d’urbanisme et d’architecture de paysage and Associate Researcher at the Chaire en paysage et environnement, Université de Montréal
- Charles Bergeron, Research Advisor, Chair in Landscape and Environment, Université de Montréal
About the CPEUM
Founded in 1996, the Chaire en paysage et environnement de l’Université de Montréal (CPEUM) is a research unit dedicated to the development of cutting-edge knowledge on landscapes and the issues they raise in terms of development. The CPEUM supports stakeholders concerned with the future of territories and living environments, and trains the next generation of landscape scientists and professionals.
Project partners
The CPEUM would like to thank the Ministère de l’Économie, de l’Innovation et de l’Énergie and the Ville de Saint-Constant for their financial support under Stream 2 of the call for social innovation projects: Partenariats entre établissements et milieux preneurs; the representatives of the Roussillon RCM for their participation in this partnership; the Villes, régions, monde interuniversity network in urban and spatial studies, as well as the Ivanhoe Cambridge Observatory of Urban and Real Estate Development, for their financial contribution to the development of this guide; and finally, the citizens of Saint-Constant for their collaboration, essential to the success of the co-creation process described in this publication.
