The city of Montreal wants to double the population of the downtown core by 2050, and add 50,000 new residents in the next 14 years.
Over the past 25 years only 20,000 people have moved into the city's centre, growing the population to 100,000.
Mayor Denis Coderre, along with former Projet Montreal leader Richard Bergeron, unveiled their wish list for the downtown core.
Some of the ideas have already been presented individually, but now they are being assembled into one document called Montreal's Strategic Plan.
They include converting former hospitals into low-cost social housing, building housing on the lands currently occupied by Radio-Canada, and finishing the Voyager Terminus.
Coderre and Bergeron said the new sites, such as the Tupper St. location of the former Montreal Children's Hospital, should be real neighbourhoods, with community centres, schools, daycares and other services necessary for people to thrive.
"One of the reasons why we have a strategy, and we're being inclusive and all working together, is we want to provide those tools to make sure we don't make the same mistakes," said Coderre.
"Instead of, as we say in French chasing our tails, we need to make sure that now we prevent [problems], and find a better way to work."
Some of the work to implement the Strategic Plan is already underway, such as the lowering of the Bonaventure Expressway.
Other parts will require negotiation with the federal government, since the plan calls for Ottawa to give its jurisdiction over the Old Port to the city of Montreal, along with a substantial amount of funding.
Coderre said negotiations are currently underway for this aspect of the strategic plan.
Montreal will hold public hearings on the plan this autumn, and present a more detailed document next year.
