Lachine's Brewster Park to get an ecological upgrade

The borough of Lachine has announced an ecological redevelopment of Brewster Park, which includes plans to build new play areas.

The park, located on the corner of Broadway and 44th Avenue, will integrate into the design what it's calling ecological functions –namely the collection of runoff water.

By remodelling Brewster Park into a catch basin, less water will drain into Lac Saint-Louis, thereby creating an absorbent sponge park.

That is expected to help everyone in the area because when a big rainstorm hits it can overwhelm the sewage system. Sponge parks collect water, reducing the accumulation in the surrounding neighbourhood.

"These days it's raining so hard even if we open up for it to go into the lake, some homes are flooded because there's just so much rain," said borough Mayor Maja Vodanovic.

The idea also gets the green light from GRAME, a non-profit environmental group in the borough. “The park is going to act like a huge natural air-conditioning," said Catherine Houbart from GRAME.

Brewster is one of three Montreal area parks being made into water-retention areas that can hold up to 10-thousand cubic metres of water –part of the city's plan to build more green infrastructure.

“The park will be made so it can collect the water and it won't be just an infrastructure to collect water, we'll make it fun for the kids, a bridge, something special for the basin," Vodanovic added.

Wet parks with aquatic plants also work like cooling islands within their neighbourhoods.

“We hope to see more and more projects like this one where we treat and maintain rainwater where it drops," said Houbart.

"It's a matter of public health and environment issues and clearly it's a change of mind, the water is not something we want to evacuate from the city, it's something we want to retain and this project is a clear contribution to that," she said.

Construction work on the park is scheduled to begin next summer. The city is also studying 25 other Montreal parks to see if they'd be suitable candidates for similar environmental upgrades.