Sports
The quest for basketball courts in the Plateau is no slam dunk – Montreal Gazette
This Plateau dad is waging a (polite) battle for a place to make hoop dreams come true in the borough.
Louis-Pierre Poulin has been waging a polite, but insistent, six-year battle to bring basketball courts to Plateau-Mont-Royal.
An avid player and father of three, he questioned why a borough with 105,000 residents didn’t have a single municipal court, or even a regulation outdoor schoolyard court where kids could play. He started his campaign back when Denis Coderre was mayor, and then, when power shifted to Projet Montréal, began cajoling Valérie Plante’s administration.
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Plateau-Mont-Royal covers eight square kilometres and has two of the largest parks in Montreal, Poulin pointed out. Surely, the city could shoehorn a court somewhere, maybe by converting one of the 12 tennis courts at Jeanne-Mance Park or by reclaiming some of the aging parking lots at La Fontaine Park.
Poulin made requests via email, phone, council meetings and in one-on-one meetings with borough officials. He presented technical plans devised by urban architects and submitted estimates from court installation companies. He reached out to school boards to ask them to free up their outdoor courts.
“Sadly, it all seems to get blocked,” said Poulin, a 38-year-old doctor and anesthesiologist who has lived in the borough for 15 years. “We still have no official confirmation. So that’s why we’re trying to do a bit of marketing, to convince our representatives that it’s important.”
In March, Poulin launched an online petition calling on city officials to put basketball courts at Jeanne-Mance and La Fontaine parks. As of early this week, it had garnered more than 1,250 signatures.
With basketball’s rise in popularity in Montreal, thanks in part to the ascension of local players like Bennedict Mathurin, Chris Boucher and Luguentz Dort to the NBA and the creation of the Montreal Alliance that competes in the Canadian Elite Basketball League, Poulin thought his quest would be easier.
Last September, Plante declared Montreal a “basketball city” to underline the sport’s growing following. There were no concrete actions connected to the declaration, however, and critics noted homegrown basketball stars Mathurin, Boucher and Dort had to travel far from their Montreal North homes to practise because the borough doesn’t have a sports complex.
The lack of courts is not a uniquely Plateau-Mont-Royal phenomenon. The City of Montreal counts only 36 municipal basketball courts in its 19 boroughs, said Caroline Bourgeois, Montreal’s executive committee member responsible for sports and recreation, and large parks. As borough mayor of Rivière-des-Prairies—Pointe-aux-Trembles, Bourgeois has seen the rise in demand firsthand.
“Our courts are full,” she said.
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Basketball Quebec, the non-profit organization overseeing the sport in the province, reported a nearly 40-per-cent rise in participants between 2014 and 2019, with the largest hike seen in the nine-to-17-year-old range. The fairy tale run of the Toronto Raptors to take the 2019 NBA championships embraced by fans and non-fans alike across the country also gave the sport a huge amount of exposure.
“It helps that the costs to join are minimal compared to other sports like hockey,” said Rémi Mezerette, communications director for Basketball Quebec. “And we’ve seen growing immigration from countries like Haiti where the sport is already popular, so they continue to play when they come here. All these things helped to make the sport explode in Quebec.”
There are some basketball nets at schools available to the public in the Plateau, but it could be better, so there are projects underway, Bourgeois said. Among them are plans to install a full basketball court with lighting and fencing next to the skatepark at the corner of St-Laurent Blvd. and Van Horne Ave. in 2024, she said. And a proposal to install a multi-sport court at La Fontaine Park “in the next two or three years.”
The borough is also trying to broker agreements with schools to use their indoor courts at night and on weekends, but are stymied by finding personnel to supervise and maintain the facilities during off-hours.
The city has upgraded or built 17 basketball courts since 2019, Bourgeois said, adding lighting, fixing nets and resurfacing some playing areas, and building new courts in LaSalle and Côte-des-Neiges. In the last city budget, $103 million was earmarked over 10 years to invest in outdoor sports infrastructure. It’s up to boroughs to apply for funding, Bourgeois said.
Installing courts in a densely populated borough like Plateau-Mont-Royal is problematic, said borough councillor Maeva Vilain. They can’t be near residences because of the noise, and the borough doesn’t want to create heat islands by paving over grass. There’s a court available at Jeanne-Mance High School and a new net was installed at St-Pierre-Claver elementary school, but she concedes the first is in bad shape and the second is only a net, not a court. Since school courts belong to school boards, renovating or getting access to them is often complicated.
Basketball also has to compete with other sports for space. There have been many requests for Ping-Pong tables recently, Vilain said. A ladies group is requesting space for dancing. Since the borough just resurfaced the tennis courts at Jeanne-Mance two years ago, it’s not ready to turn any of them into basketball courts. Vilain said she has had few requests concerning basketball. With one of the borough’s two hockey arenas closed for renovation, most demands are related to that sport, she said.
There’s also the cost. Although plans aren’t finalized, the borough estimates the court at the Van Horne skatepark will cost $1 million, plus $500,000 for a self-cleaning toilet.
The price tag strikes Jonathan Normandeau as high. Director of the PC Court company based in Ste-Agathe-des-Monts that’s been installing outdoor courts since 1986, Normandeau said his company’s standard fee to install a basketball court for municipalities or schools is between $150,000 and $200,000. Light stands might add another $30,000. He noted, however, that elements like contaminated soil, the stability of the surface, underground sewage or water pipes and other infrastructure issues can affect prices.
Plateau-Mont-Royal borough spokesperson Julien Deschênes said several factors are affecting the cost of the Van Horne court, including decontaminating soil, installing a chain-link fence and lighting, and adding things like benches and water fountains.
For Martin Dusseault, a social worker who helped to create the Bien dans mes baskets program in the Plateau that uses basketball to help teenagers at risk of dropping out or struggling with other issues, having available courts is a crucial tool to focus young minds and burn off energy and angst. He’s been pushing for basketball courts in the Plateau for 20 years.
“I think it’s good there’s a citizens movement that can hopefully move the community toward building something as soon as possible,” he said.
With its easy accessibility to all socioeconomic levels and its worldwide popularity, basketball is a sport well-suited to a multicultural, diverse city like Montreal, Poulin said. Negative stereotypes or prejudices that may have hampered its growth are starting to wane as more people play, he said. Now, it only takes political will to make it happen.
The promises of new courts is heartening and the petition has gained the support of local luminaries like Guy A. Lepage of Tout le monde en parle, Québec solidaire MNA Ruba Ghazal and the Conseil du sport de Montréal non-profit group.
But after six years of lobbying while his children get older, Poulin is looking for something more concrete they can actually play on.
“Politics being politics, I’d like to see something in writing,” he said.
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