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VILLAGES
IN CITIES
Dedicated to Lucia Kowaluk,
community organizer extraordinaire

VILLAGES
IN CITIES
Community Land Ownership,
Co-operative Housing,
and the Milton-Parc Story
Joshua hawley
Dimitrios roussopoulos
Editors
Montreal • New York • Chicago • London

Copyright ©2019 Black Rose Books
Second printing
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means electronic or mechanical
including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system – without written
permission from the publisher, or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a license
from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency, Access Copyright, with the exception of brief passages
quoted by a reviewer in a newspaper or magazine.
Black Rose Books No. SS398
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Villages in cities / Josh Hawley and Dimitrios Roussopoulos,

editors.
Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN 978-1-55164-688-6 .--ISBN 978-1-55164-687-9
--ISBN 978-1-55164-689-3
1. Housing--Canada--Case studies. 2. Housing, Cooperative--

Canada--Case studies. 3. Land trusts--Canada--Case studies.
4. Right to housing--Canada--Case studies. 5. Housing--United
States--Case studies. 6. Housing, Cooperative--United States--Case
studies. 7. Land tenure--United States--Case studies. 8. Right to
housing--United States--Case studies. 9. Case studies.
I. Roussopoulos, Dimitrios I., editor II. Hawley, Josh, 1988-, editor
HD7287.72.C3V55 2018 307.3'360971 C2018-906180-4

C2018-906181-2
C.P. 35788 Succ. Léo Pariseau

Montréal, QC H2X 0A4
CANADA
www.blackrosebooks.com
ORDERING INFORMATION
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Black Rose Books is the publishing project of Cercle Noir et Rouge

Contents
6 Acknowledgements
8 Introduction
Joshua Hawley and Dimitrios Roussopoulos
18 January 1971 MPCC Introductory Pamphlet
24 Milton-Parc: How We Did It and How It Works Now

Lucia Kowaluk and Carolle Piché-Burton
36 1969 Free Press
39 Champlain Housing Trust

Brenda Torpy
51 1970 Architecture Canada Newsmagazine Debate
55 Montreal and Boston: Intertwined Destinies

Julien Deschênes
66 Spring-Summer 1971 BULLDOZER: Bulletin of the MPCC
72 1972 Community Press (formerly the BULLDOZER)
83 On Housing
Lucia Kowaluk
91 1973 Arrests and Trial
98 Housing Co-ops: Citizen Control or Social Service

Joshua Hawley
108 1979 Letter from Lucia Kowaluk to Phyllis Lambert

and Heritage Montreal
122 Social Production of Housing

Iman Salama
130 1983 CMHC Press Release on the Inauguration of Milton-Parc
134 Interview with Dimitrios Roussopoulos
146 Interview with Lucia Kowaluk
155 Appendix A: Financial and Technical Participation

of CMHC in Milton-Parc
157 Appendix B: Timeline of Milton-Parc: 1979-1987
162 About the authors

Acknowledgements
THIS BOOK WOuLD not have been possible without full access to the Milton-
Parc archives housed at the Canadian Centre for Architecture. ank you to all
the CCA staff who helped us navigate through this huge depository and to John
Goedike for spending hours pouring over the documents and photos and bringing
history alive with his anecdotes. ank you to Robert Cohen for the fascinating
discussions on Milton-Parc. ank you to Phoebe Munro and Peter Mathewson
for their thorough and thoughtful edits to this book. A million thanks to the
residents of Milton-Parc, whose passion for their neighbourhood is an inspiration
to defend and build the power of working class neighbourhoods everywhere.
Finally, we recall history and the valient and courageous militancy of the Milton-
Parc Citizens Committee, without which the Milton-Parc project would have
been impossible; and to the wonderful 59 arrestees who confronted Concordia
Estates Ltd in their offices and got justice when they won their trial.
Introduction
Joshua Hawley and Dimitrios Roussopoulos
“Milton-Parc is also much more—it is people, people getting

together in their search for a better community within
the larger one. A village within the city.”
—Anonymous, Let Me Talk to You About Milton-Parc, circa 1983
LIKE POLLuTION, gentrification cannot be contained by borders. A pollutant

may emanate from one source but it spreads from farmland to river, from exhaust
pipe to air, from city to ocean, affecting species and habitats along the way.
Likewise, a city or neighbourhood in the midst of an influx of finance capital and
en vogue speculation may be the emitter of toxic “urban renewal,” “beautification,”
and “liveability,” but the displacement of people from their homes has effects that
cross neighbourhood and municipal boundaries.
Diluting the effects of gentrification through inclusionary zoning—the
offsetting of total displacement by sprinkling a token amount of so-called
affordable housing in among “resort-style” apartment or luxury condo
complexes—presupposes that residential and commercial real estate developers,
speculative investors, and urban planners have the right to control and shape our
cities and neighbourhoods. ese corporate interest groups are driven by profit
and an ingrained sense of technocratic superiority, like the urban planners who
see themselves as innovators and “community designers,” turning neighbour-
hoods freshly vacated of poor people into their sandboxes. eir continued
legitimacy in determining the future of cities crushes the opportunity for people
with lower incomes to build their own lives and destroys the interpersonal
networks that make up the social phenomenon that is a city.
is book presents a different kind of solution to the question of urban land,
one that’s been implemented in cities around the world, not under one banner or
movement, but under a common militant belief that the only way to secure
housing and prevent people from being forcibly evicted or priced out of their
homes is to decommodify the land. rough various strategies and mechanisms,
land that is taken off the real estate market is protected from speculation. is
becomes a common heritage which inevitably develops into a sense of community
and citizenship.
J O S H uA HAW L E y • D I M I T R I O S R O u S S O P O u L O S 9
Land ownership has always been central in questions of economic devel-

opment, justice, and equality. It was Jean-Jacques Rousseau who wrote in 1775,
“Beware of listening to the imposter; you are undone if you once forget that the
fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody.” Or Adam Smith
who a year later, in 1776, wrote: “Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the
security of property, is, in reality, instituted for the defence of the rich against the
poor, or those who have property against those who have none at all.” Or again
Joseph Stiglitz who, in 2015, wrote “Much of the growth in inequality and the
increase in the wealth-income ratio are related to an increase in rent and land
values.” e nature of the urban economy—who owns it and who controls it—is
up for intense scrutiny, and we need to set more ambitious goals in our striving
for economic democracy.
is book focuses on the need for community land trusts, especially in urban
centres, to protect land and housing from capitalist extraction and speculation.
Such land, permanently in the hands of community control, forms the base on
which to develop community-led social housing, economic development, and
ecological transformation. ese are the villages in cities that we urgently need
to transform our society. Indeed, they are already being created.
Only once land is removed from market forces, not just free from speculation,
can our homes actually be considered decommodified. Non-profit, co-operative
housing doesn’t accomplish this on its own. Everything in the process to develop
this housing has been commodified, from the stolen, unceded indigenous land
to the extracted raw materials to the construction workers exploited by private
companies. Removing profit at the source of provision doesn’t erase its exploitative
lifecycle, let alone the fact that non-profit landlords, whether they be staffed or
self-managed, still collect rent and evict tenants.
Resident/citizen-led projects that aim to decommodify the land—to free the
land from market forces—remain concretely focused on their implicit anti-
capitalist goal, as opposed to institutionalized organizations which tend to
prioritize promoting their sector’s workforce of non-profit service providers. e
international co-operative movement, for example, has an institutionalized
corporate structure and its own rule book which has become abstracted to the
point of being co-opted by the existing power structure. is is not unlike much
of the trade union movement. Even the co-op stalwart Mondragon, headquartered
in the Basque region of Spain, has a number of subsidiaries in China which are
practically indistinguishable from regular multinationals which have created a
hybrid, “co-opitalist” enterprise.1 ere is an irony herein. Both the co-operative
and trade union movements have a crying need for renewal. e stakes are high,
in both cases. Consider the impact of the co-operative movement on the global
economy—worldwide, the co-op movement employs more than 100 million
10 INTRODuCTION
people and counts nearly one billion people as members.2

With regard to the non-profit co-operative housing sector, it is still largely at
the mercy of the politics of city governments and the capitalist driven real estate
industry that celebrates profit before life itself. Add to this the drama that urban
real estate is very much the preferred investment choice of finance capital, the
consequence of which is that entire neighbourhoods have been hollowed out to
make way for condos and “multi-use” office buildings with built-in hotels and
apartments. Nothing stands in the way of this massive wave of urbanization except
citizens—organized citizens. And at the top of the agenda is who should own and
control urban land.
Milton-Parc and the Community Land Trust Movement

e closest efforts to decommodify urban land in North America (perhaps even
in the Global North) have come from the community land trust (CLT) model.
e CLT is an American creation, with New Communities Inc. in Georgia being
credited as the first. New Communities Inc., born out of the Civil Rights
Movement, became the largest African American co-operative farm of its time.3
Land is held in trust, not solely for conservation purposes, but for the land’s use
value, laying the foundation for self-determination.
Since then, a multitude of creative interventions have been used to establish
CLTs, each specific to the political, cultural, and economic circumstances of its
time, such as the Caño Martín Peña Community Land Trust in San Juan, Puerto
Rico, which is a CLT formed by residents of squatter settlements along a polluted
waterway, or the flurry of activity to decommodify land around the Bay Area,
California.
en there is the Communauté Milton Parc (CMP) in Montreal, a remarkable
project that will form a central focus of this book. e CMP is based on the
uniquely innovative legal framework “condominium for social purposes” where
the condo members are not individual residents but 22 community-run non-
profit corporations—15 housing co-ops, six non-profit housing projects, and the
Société de Développement Communautaire Milton-Parc (SDC), which runs the
commercial properties. e CMP, created through a private member’s bill at the
Quebec National Assembly in 1987, has been able to abolish speculation over six
contiguous downtown blocks through its rock-solid Declaration of Co-ownership
which effectively prevents the buying and selling of property as well as instituting
strict socio-economic criteria in the process of selecting new members to favor
very low and low-income people.
e Milton-Parc struggle was initiated in the sixties when a “developer” started
buying up a six-block area, building by building, with the intention of destroying
the neighbourhood through processes of “urban renewal”; their strategies
included running homes into the ground, displacing tenants through slum
conditions and evictions, demolishing quality homes in order to build “the city
of the twenty-first century,” and pricing tenants out through the modernist logic
of gentrification. From its founding in the turbulent year of 1968, the Milton-Parc
Citizens’ Committee (MPCC-CCMP) wanted to abolish speculation, stop
gentrification, preserve their neighbourhood and its architecture, improve living
conditions, and defend their territory against future attacks by “developers”. ey
sought early on to build common strength, grassroots power, and resilience
among residents. ey worked to control their future and avoid the commod-
ification of their housing which outside economic and political interests tried to
impose on them.
e MPCC always embraced the idea that its mission was much more than
just saving buildings. It was more than a battle to protect housing for low-income
people and to save heritage greystone Victorian buildings—the struggle was also
to generate a community based on a co-operative idea. e housing project was
built from the ground up through countless hours of door-knocking, face-to-face
meetings, and debate. is movement did involve the input and guidance of many
professionals, who in turn always understood that this was a resident-led
movement and, once established, the residents would ultimately assume control.
As described by one of the lead professionals involved, Robert Cohen: “ere is
no other non-speculative, non-profit project like this one in Canada. It’s a
community running itself.”4 is vision of resident/citizen control of their
neighbourhood, not as a non-profit for the professional, managerial class, but as
a working class, “citizens’ corporation,” first coalesced as an alternative plan from
a Community Design Workshop held in September 1971. is was well before
that vision was formalized in 1980 with the Action Plan that laid out the structure
and organization that would eventually become the Communauté Milton-Parc
(CMP) land trust.
Published for the 30th anniversary of the CMP and the 50th anniversary of
the citizens’ committee, this book originally emerged to commemorate this
history of political struggle and community organizing. It goes further to explore
the principles of the community control of land and housing in connection with
other case studies in North America. e book is compiled from three sources.
First, there are contributions from authors on the history and functioning of
various CLTs, the social production of habitat, and the co-op movement. Second,
interspersed between these are historical documents from the Milton-Parc
archives housed at the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) in Montreal.5
Finally, the book ends with interviews with two long-time Milton-Parc residents,
organizers, founding members of the MPCC, and life partners—Lucia Kowaluk
and Dimitrios Roussopoulos.6
12 INTRODuCTION
***
In the last five years, housing prices in Oakland, only ten minutes by transit from
notoriously expensive San Francisco, have doubled and median rents have risen
by $1,000. e city has lost around 30% of its Black population since 2000.7 you
can’t travel far without passing an established tent city, some of which even operate
on co-operative values. is is a city in the midst of massive displacement of the
poor and people of colour.
e grassroots organizing around these issues in and around Oakland is
impressive. under the Bay Area Consortium of Community Land Trusts, there
are: the Bay Area Community Land Trust, Housing Land Trust of Sonoma
County, the Northern California Land Trust, San Francisco Community Land
Trust, the Community Land Trust of West Marin, Oakland CLT, and Preserving
Affordable Housing Assets Longterm, Inc. of East Palo Alto.8 ese organizations
have been effective at taking land off the capitalist market, plot-by-plot. is has
happened through different means, such as private donations or by convincing
autonomous housing co-ops to join. For example, Fairview House in Berkeley,
an intentional community started by a group of anarchist students in the 1960s,
“entered into a relationship with the Northern California Land Trust that sets
income limits on new members” in order to maintain affordability and “freedom
from the speculative real estate market.”9
Oakland, then, seemed an appropriate place for a gathering of people fighting
for decommodified housing and land during the 2017 conference of Grounded
Solutions Network, the American network of CLTs. At both the Oakland
conference and the 2018 national conference in Pittsburgh, there was a Canadian
delegation. Among the delegation were longstanding and emerging Canadian
urban land trust groups, which see community ownership of land and the
development of housing as the way to reclaim neighbourhoods. From Vancouver
is Hogan’s Alley Trust, intent on reclaiming the anchor neighbourhood for the
city’s Black population which was deliberately destroyed by the municipal govern-
ment through tactics of “revitalization.” In Toronto, the Parkdale Neighbourhood
Land Trust is working to protect ever-disappearing rooming houses and scoop
up land to develop non-profit housing and community spaces in one of the city
centre’s last working-class neighbourhoods. So far, they’ve managed to acquire
the Milky Way Garden, a 7,000 square feet vacant property turned community
garden, and also their first residential building, a rooming house threatened by
displacement. And of course there is the Communauté Milton-Parc (CMP) and
Milton-Parc Citizens’ Committee (MPCC-CCMP) from Montréal.
With CLTs catching on in Canada, evidenced by the number of groups
emerging in the last few years, there was agreement amongst the Canadian delega-
tion at the two u.S. conferences that removing urban land from the speculative
market and turning it over to collective, community ownership should only be

pursued while considering how to end the legitimating of colonial control of unceded
Indigenous territory. is was determined to be a long-term goal, but one that must
be articulated from the outset of any community land acquisition project.
Curiously, in the united States, CLTs have major backing from financial
juggernauts and accomplished predatory lenders, Wells Fargo and JPMorgan
Chase. At this point, it’s unclear whether the banks support CLTs as a form of
socially responsible investment (SRI), as public relations penance for the 2008
housing crisis, or as a move to co-opt and undermine an effective tool to ensure
permanent affordability of housing. Whatever the reason for their support, the
corporate finance and non-profit presence at the conference, although highly
visible, was overwhelmed by the sheer number and enthusiasm of grassroots
organizers who spend their lives fighting developers and city governments that
expel all but the rich, pushing people of colour and the poor beyond their financial
and emotional limits—and beyond the geographic limits of the city.
Despite a “best practices” orientation inevitably emerging from the institu-
tionalization of a movement, grassroots urban land trusts around the world
demonstrate there is not one single model to follow. Although “single-family
homes on collectively-owned land” is the default CLT model promoted by
Grounded Solutions Network, there is a lot of talk of how resident-run housing—
co-op housing—shares the same values and goals of CLTs. Many CLTs have
already taken this approach. However, others remain open to private home-
ownership to broaden their prospects for funding in the interest of acquiring as
much land as possible.
CLTs have been shown to be an effective tool in protecting land and creating
lasting housing for low-income people. From the Champlain Housing Trust in
Burlington, Vermont, whose founders turned to Milton-Parc for inspiration over
30 years ago, to the uK’s National CLT Network, which grew from 30 CLTs in 2010
to over 200 in 2017,10 community organizers have begun normalizing the idea and
practice of urban residents collectively controlling the land they live on in.
CLTs, the Neighbourhood, and the City

Clearly, the ownership of land—urban land specifically—has become an issue of
growing importance in the minds of organizers in social movements that focus
on housing, poverty, and quality of life matters. e absolute right to private
property regarding land and its ownership is now being questioned and
alternatives are being sought.
However, in Canada, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation still
elevates private home ownership as the ultimate solution. ey view housing as a
continuum. On one end is homelessness. Next to this is supportive housing,
1 INTRODuCTION
followed by social housing, co-ops and non-profits, market rent, and finally
private homeownership. According to the State, Canadians are eager to pay
mortgages.
How are tenants, especially poor ones, expected to build a sense of community
if their homes are considered only gateways to private ownership? Communities
are strengthened through rootedness and strong communities are foundational
to a meaningful democracy. Shouldn’t low-income housing be considered more
than just transitional? urban land trusts may be the tool needed to create low-
income housing that is socially cohesive, empowered, and deeply rooted for the
long-term.
e need for community control goes beyond the question of housing, but
touches on the very issues at the heart of our cities. ere is growing recognition
that cities are held back from becoming more egalitarian and free by corporate
greed, loss of public space, and rising inequality. Across the world, urban
reformers and urban radicals are putting urban ecology into practice, trans-
forming abandoned public spaces, setting up community co-operatives, and
powering up citizen engagement in public affairs.
Building inclusive and equitable local economies requires a fair redistribution
of wealth and ensuring the poor benefit from urban improvement efforts. What
is equally important is an equitable redistribution of decision-making power,
involving participatory planning and democratic participation over how
neighbourhoods should develop and how local economic resources are allocated.
e cry for community control is becoming louder again.
As the debate unfolds, the larger dimension of the municipalization of the
urban economy appears on the political horizon. is is distinguished from
“nationalization” which leads to bureaucratic and top-down control.
Municipalization insists on the idea that all land should be public municipal land
and democratically accountable to the local community. What is constructed on
top of that land can be owned by different organizations—private, co-operative,
or non-profit—but the ultimate objective is to render the land of an entire city
under public ownership and managed by the city government in partnership with
community organizations and land trusts of various sizes and vocations. e
municipality—or, more precisely, the citizen body grounded in face-to-face
assembly—absorbs the economy as an aspect of public business, and no longer a
realm privatized for self-serving enterprises. us the debate beyond the
community land trust has been engaged.
In Quebec, this visionary political objective has a history. François Saillant,
(perhaps the most famous tenant rights activist in Quebec), in his 2018 book
Lutter pour un toit, notes in his conclusion that three Quebec political parties in
the 1970s proposed the elimination of land speculation by the “progressive
J O S H uA HAW L E y • D I M I T R I O S R O u S S O P O u L O S 1
municipalization of urban land.” e Front d’action politique (FRAP: the acronym

is French for hit) was a radical political party formed out of an alliance of citizen
organizations and labour unions in the late 1960s. Its political descendant was
the Rassemblement des citoyens et des citoyennes de Montréal (the Montreal
Citizens’ Movement, RCM-MCM), a political party founded to contest the
authoritarian rule of the then Mayor Jean Drapeau and his handpicked candidates.
Both the FRAP and the RCM were quite popular, the latter even winning 18 city
council seats in its first election of 1974 before later winning the mayoralty. In
addition, the separatist provincial party, the Parti québécois (PQ), also advocated
for the municipalization of urban land. With these three grassroots political
parties, municipalization was put on the political agenda.
e More ings Change

e archival materials in this book celebrate the Milton-Parc Citizens’
Committee’s grounding in the historical working-class struggle over housing. e
organizational capacity of the tenants and the phenomenal amount of labour they
put in, as well as the vivacity of the surrounding discourse, comes alive through
excerpts from self-published community newspapers, correspondence letters,
newspaper articles, and op-eds. e propaganda put out by the MPCC during its
decade of protest was highly charged, informed, and co-ordinated. It reflects the
political militancy of the residents and their strategy of direct action against
organized capital—politicians, developers, investors, banks, and the police. e
archival materials in this book acts as a guide for organizers who face similar
struggles. What’s remarkable is that they are as relevant today as they were 50
years ago. ey draw a concrete link between current struggles and the Milton-
Parc Citizens’ Committee’s approach from 1968 to 1972.
e ongoing battle to save our neighbourhoods has been taken up by groups
such as Parkdale: Organize! in Toronto, Hamilton Tenants Solidarity Network
(HTSN), and Herongate Tenant Coalition (HTC)11 in Ottawa. ese groups see
that the most immediate way to defend our homes and communities is not by
defaulting to the non-profit sector, but by building independent working-class
neighbourhood power and directly confronting those who extract profit from us,
in particular landlords. Since the summer of 2017, Parkdale: Organize! has
undertaken two successful mass rent strikes in apartment buildings, forcing
landlords to drop rent increases and do much-needed repairs. HTSN has put
direct pressure on landlords and won material improvements in tenants’ lives,
such as repairs and increasing the heat in the winter.
HTC has launched what is likely the largest housing rights case ever heard in
Canada aer over 00 Black and Brown tenants were evicted from their homes
in Herongate in the summer of 2018 so the landlord can attract a whiter, more
16 INTRODuCTION
affluent tenant base. Herongate, a largely family-oriented working-class

neighbourhood in the south end of Canada’s capital, Ottawa, is experiencing a
profound redevelopment. e landlord, Toronto-based Timbercreek Asset
Management, is now constructing “resort-style apartments” where the demolished
homes once sat. Leilani Farha, the united Nations Special Rapporteur on
Adequate Housing, who lives in Ottawa, has called these evictions an “egregious
violation of human rights.”
e Herongate Tenant Coalition has been directly inspired by the historical
precedent set by the MPCC beginning in 1968. e language used by the MPCC
in their battle against Concordia Estates Ltd. (the company that wanted to destroy
Milton-Parc) can be used interchangeably with urban battles now underway. Take,
for example, the following passage from the MPCC’s 1971 community newspaper.
Changing only a few words reveals how little has changed:
If we cannot stop Concordia [Timbercreek], the people who live in

Milton-Park [Herongate] will have to leave. A community will be
destroyed. And people like them—immigrant, French-Canadian [working
class, Muslim], low-income, and families—will not replace them. But the
rich, unmarried or childless, the passing student, the professional on their
way to the suburbs, will climb up to their bachelor apartment, and look
down on what used to be a neighbourhood.
e parallels are uncanny. e more things change, the more they stay the same.
e authors’ contributions to this book tie the Milton-Parc struggle to global
examples of self-determination through community ownership of urban land and
co-op housing—collective efforts to counter the destructive force of capitalism
on the people who live in cities. e value of these chapters lies not in blind hope
and optimism but in the visions of alternatives to the dominant, mainstream
urban order of control, and in the critical lens through which these alternatives
are viewed. e new world that we want to create is already being developed
everyday, everywhere. Our battles are similar, and our work for social change is
part of a historical process that began long before us and will continue long aer.
And so we need to learn from each other and from those who have gone before
us, take inspiration from our successes and challenges, and build solidarity across
our movements. Hopefully, this book will be an important contribution to this.
EDITORS’ NOTE
Spelling has been le untouched in the archival materials, except for a few minor
grammar or typo corrections. roughout the struggle, Milton-Parc was spelled
primarily as Milton-Park, especially in English documents. Over the years, the

French spelling has become the norm, both in English and French usage. “Citizen”
is used throughout this book not in the nationalist sense of a person who is “a
legally recognized subject or national of a state,” but as a resident of a city.
e interviews have been edited for clarity, readability, and factual correctness.
REFERENCES
Allen-Price, Olivia. 2017. ‘How Many Are Being Displaced by Gentrification in
Oakland?’ KQED. 9 February 2017. https://bit.ly/2XQca4o.
Askew, Kate, ‘Alliance coopérative internationale, and Année internationale des
coopératives.’ 2012. Building a Better World: 100 Stories of Co-operation.
Focus; [Geneva: Sydney, Australia; International Co-operative Alliance.
Errasti, Anjel. 201. ‘Mondragon’s Chinese Subsidiaries: Coopitalist
Multinationals in Practice.’ Economic and Industrial Democracy 36 (3):
479–99. https://doi.org/10.1177/0143831X131103.
Helman, Claire. 1987. e Milton-Park Affair: Canada’s Largest Citizen-
Developer Confrontation. Montréal: Véhicule Press.
Napier, Joyce. 1983. ‘Party Celebrates Rescue of a Neighbourhood.’ e Globe
and Mail, 26 September 1983.
NOTES
1 Errasti, 201.
2 Askey, 2012.
3 See the documentary Arc of Justice, 2016 www.arcousticefilm.com
4 Napier, 1983. Statement by Robert Cohen, the executive director of the Milton-Parc
Technical Resource Group, during the inauguration of Milton-Parc in 1983. Quoted in e
Globe and Mail.
 e CCA was founded by philanthropist architect Phyllis Lambert, who was instrumental
in helping the residents of Milton-Parc realize their project and persuading the federal
government to financially back it.
6 So many people were involved in the citizen struggle to save Milton-Parc, and
unfortunately not all of their stories can be included here. e Milton-Parc Story, a history
of the neighbourhood from multiple perspectives by Joshua Hawley, will soon be available
online.
7 Allen-Price, 2017.
8 www.bacclt.org
9 www.fairviewhouse.org
10 www.communitylandtrusts.org.uk/what-is-a-clt/about-clts
11 https://herongatetenants.ca/
January 1971
MPCC Introductory Pamphlet
Introductory Pamphlet
Why — does the Milton-Park Association exist?
Because — Montreal has a housing problem that is steadily getting worse:
— while prices climb steadily, 30% of Montreal is poor, existing on incomes
that are fixed, or which, in the past ten years have been outpaced by inflation.
— although the number of poor is increasing, all new houses being built are
designed for highest profit. Without exception, they are out of reach of those
Montrealers who most desperately need new homes.
— even those houses that the poor now live in are being taken from them.
25,000 low income housing units have been replaced by commercial projects,
highways, and many many parking lots.
— city tax policies make it more attractive to landlords to allow their properties
to fall into disrepair, to sell out to “developers,” or to just clear the land.
— public housing, because of labour and material costs, is enormously expensive.
The City of Montreal has spent its energy on showplace projects, such as Expo,
which to the poor, only serve to raise prices.
It is clear that reigning politicians will do nothing to correct this situation.
Those in need must fight together for common goals. Only group action can de-
velop housing co-operatives, neighbourhood administered social services, or any
other aspect of community control.
Many newcomers to the Milton-Park Committee felt confused by the issues
being dealt with in response to this need, we have attempted to present the
facts in an organized fashion. We need the help of anyone interested and wel-
come your suggestions. Meetings are Tuesday nights at 8:00 p.m. at the Uni-
versity settlement at 3553 St. Urbain St.
History Of The Committee

Having started solely as a group opposing the Concordia project, the Milton-Park
Citizens’ Committee has broadened its scope to include such community projects
as a daycare centre for small children, a street festival, and a newspaper, among others.
M P C C I N T R O D u C T O Ry PA M P H L E T 19
Summer 1968: tenants and proprietors, living mainly within the six-block area of
the projected Concordia plan, having heard that Concordia intended to have the
City expropriate those homes which it did not yet possess, held a public meeting.
One hundred and sixty-six people attended this meeting.
August 1968: a questionnaire was sent around to the residents of the six-block
area. The results are as follows:
1. 92% of the people interviewed gave their support to the citizens’ committee.
2. The majority of the residents had lived in the area five years or more, and
many have lived in the area for more than 35 years. 97% expressed the desire
to remain in the area.
3. A large majority of those polled favoured rehabilitation of present housing,
rather than demolition.
4. A large majority of Concordia tenants expressed serious complaints against
this landlord. These complaints were about repairs, cleaning, vermin, etc.
Only a minimal number of tenants of other landlords had such complaints.
The Milton-Park Citizens’ Committee outlined its three major goals:

1. To develop a counter-proposition to the Concordia plan which would favour
rehabilitation of the majority of homes.
2. To develop essential community services, such as daycare centres, co-
operatives, etc.
3. To protect tenants against abuse and injustice from Concordia such as poor
maintenance of the properties and delays in major repairs.
Sept.–Oct.: The Committee met unsuccessfully with Concordia on the question

of citizens’ participation in their project.
October 1968: The Committee presented a brief to the Hellyer Commission on

Housing.
January 1969: The Committee met with M. Alie, the city councillor for this area
regarding the mountain-view by-law. This by-law, already in effect to the west of
University Street, limits the height of buildings in order to protect the view of Mount
Royal. M. Alie encouraged the Committee to follow this up—but that was all.
February 1969: The Committee, not having been invited to a meeting between the
City Planning Department and Concordia, in which Concordia’s plans for the area
were being presented, requested to attend. The city approved, but Concordia’s
representatives refused to allow the citizens this right.
20 VILLAGES IN CITIES
April 1969: At the insistence of the Milton-Park Citizens’ Committee, three mini-
parks were promised by Concordia for this area, and eventually created.
May 1969: There was a Milton-Park Demonstration of about 100 people at City
Hall, with support from other citizens’ groups. After Lucien Saulnier1 refused to
meet the representatives, a petition bearing over 800 names was delivered to
him asking that the city take no action regarding urban renewal without citizen
participation.
Summer 1969: Weekly film showings were held in the backyard of one of the
committee members. Further negotiations with Concordia showed they
pretended to discuss participation but had no intention of really allowing it.
November 1969: With the co-operation of the City of Montreal, the provincial
government gave the lanes in the six-block area to Concordia. The bill of sale of
the lanes from sixty years ago forbade building more than two or three storey
houses, but when the lanes transferred hands, this bill of sale was annulled.
This outright gift of one million dollars worth of property is a prime example of
collaboration between the government and private enterprise at the expense of
the citizens.
January 1970: The Committee, now incorporated, began its concentrated efforts
to get signed memberships from the residents of the area. By-laws were drawn
up which attempted to preserve the democratic working of the committee as
well as meet with the legal standards of Quebec.
May 1970: Planning began to change the alleyways behind Basset Street and
Lorne Crescent into public parks. Architects have volunteered their services to
work with residents in this venture.
July 1970: The Milton-Park Street Festival. A very great community success.
CITIZEN POWER: The fundamental principle of the Milton-Park Committee is that

of citizen participation in all aspects of decision-making which affect them.
The rallying point of the Milton-Park Citizens’ Committee has been the
protection of their area from demolition by Concordia Estates Holdings Ltd.
According to the 1961 census, 71% of the houses in the area are in good
condition, 25% need minor repairs, while only 4% of the houses need major
repairs, Thus, 96% of the houses offered satisfactorily meet housing conditions.
In spite of this data, Concordia has in the past attempted to convince the public
that this area is a slum in the hope of gaining popular support for their intended
project which would destroy the present community bounded by Pine Avenue
on the north, Milton Street on the south, Hutchison in the west and Ste. Famille
in the east. The present low rental housing would be replaced by commercial
buildings (including a 29 floor office building and a hotel of 500 rooms) and a
high-rise apartment complex containing a large proportion of bachelor
apartments which would rent at $180 a month for a room with a kitchenette.
Current rents are at $130 a month for nine room homes.
There is presently an acute shortage of low-rent housing in Montreal. “During
the past six years, Montreal has witnessed the destruction of some ten thousand
units of low income accommodation…Private redevelopment of the inner city
of the magnitude of Cité Concordia will augment this shocking total.” (The
Committee on Housing and Urban Renewal of the Montreal Metropolitan
Region, Nov. 1969).
Concordia itself now admits that their scheme of relocating tenants in houses
vacated in the area is only short term.
“We recognize that relocation is a short-term solution. As we build we keep
reducing the portion of the housing stock which we can offer at low rentals” (Herb
Auerbach, September 17, 19692). This is to say that people will be relocated in
existing houses for only the four years that comprise Phase One of the project.
Although Concordia has spoken of an “agreement in principle” between
Concordia and the Quebec Housing Corporation to provide low rent units in Cité
Concordia, such an agreement is not possible under present law, and has been
denied repeatedly by Quebec Housing.
Concordia is clearly finding it difficult to finance Cité Concordia. To date
(Jan. 1971) they have held three unveilings; in 1968, 1969, and again in
1970. Each unveiling has been a fund-seeking affair; the change from year to
year being the increasing quantity of commercial units and the corresponding
decrease in residential buildings. They cannot yet be definite about when they
will start demolition and construction.
“The city planning department survey shows that citizens moved from the
Little Burgundy slums into the new St. Martin Blocks public housing
apartments3 now pay 83% more for rent than they did before. Planners feel that
the record provides an argument in favour of providing housing to low income
groups through restoration of older houses and rent subsidies paid directly to
citizens instead of putting the accent on new buildings. They base their
arguments not only on the higher cost—and higher rents—of new public
housing, but on the effects of these higher rents on the social fabric of slum
areas. As Hans Blumenfeld, a noted city planner, puts it, “The war on slums all
too often appears to be a war on slum victims” (The Montreal Star).
Despite Concordia’s eight year neglect of much of their property, “restoration

of the area would be minimal” according to Aimé Desautels, director of the City
Planning Department (May 26, 1969).
The Milton-Park Citizens’ Committee has been incorporated as a non-profit
association with the legal possibility of buying and administering houses on a
non-profit basis for the benefit of low-income residents of the area. This alter-
native has been well researched and declared economically feasible by both
the citizens’ committee and the Quebec Housing Corporation. The citizens and
the QHC are now negotiating low-interest loans for fifty-year periods in order
to enable the Citizens’ Corporation to buy houses in the Milton-Park area.
Following is a resumé of the different sub-committees working within the
Milton-Park Citizens’ Committee:
Daycare
Milton-Park is exploring a variety of possible ways in which inexpensive daycare
can be provided.
Alleyways Committee
The Alleyways Committee is involved with promoting neighbourhood co-opera-
tion in attempting to change backyards and alleyways into attractive public parks
where everyone can enjoy themselves. To date, the area of Basset St. is the
focus of this community project. Citizen participation in the preliminary stages
in both projects has been enthusiastic and the Basset St. group has already ap-
proached the city and are now at the stage of finalizing their plans.
Bulldozer
Bulldozer is a community newspaper distributed about every three weeks within
the Milton-Park area since 1968. It prints ideas on housing and community co-
operation. It attempts to bring to the community attention the philosophy and
actions of the Milton-Park Citizens’ Committee.
Publicity Committee
The Publicity Committee prepares and distributes press releases. Occasionally
it holds press conferences. All statements which it intends to release must be
cleared at the Tuesday night general meeting except when a Tuesday meeting
authorizes the committee to act between meetings. The activity is usually re-
stricted to newspapers, TV and radio. Other types of public are handled by the
other MPCC committees. We welcome your help, surtout si vous parlez français.
The Activity Committee

This group plans and puts on festivals (such as the Summer Street Festival),
benefit concerts, movie showings, etc.
Workshop Committee
This sub-committee is in the midst of creating a craft workshop for the area in
which people may develop skills and eventually sell products.
Housing Committee
The sub-committee which is planning citizen-owned low-rent housing in the dis-
trict and negotiating with Quebec Housing.
Medical Clinic
Milton-Park will begin a free Community Clinic at the end of January. Doctors,
nurses, supplies, and space have been found, but the day-to-day work of contact
with the people and running the clinic needs many volunteers.
SO IT IS TIME TO MAKE A STAND

• Various actions are possible in order to pressure those responsible
for the situation.
• We can present our case against Concordia at a hearing of the Rental
Control Board, who can refuse Concordia its demolition permits.
• We are working out an alternate plan for the renovation and preservation of
the neighbourhood.
• We can use a rent strike to back Concordia down—we deposit our rents
with a lawyer, to back up our demands.
• We can picket and demonstrate in front of Concordia’s offices to publicize
our situation and get public opinion on our side.
• We can join forces with citizens across the City who are fighting similar
battles and who agree with us that Concordia is only one example of a
vicious system that sacrifices people to profits.
CITIZEN POWER WILL STOP CONCORDIA
N OT E S
1 Saulnier was Chair of the Montreal Executive Committee from 1960–1969.
2 Herb Auerbach was the project manager for Concordia Estates.
3 Îlots Saint-Martin, in Montreal’s southwest neighbourhood of Little Burgundy, was built
in 1969 and consists of 307 apartments for families and six apartments used as common
areas. It is public housing, owned and administered by the Office municipal d’habitation
de Montréal.
Communauté Milton-Parc:
How We Did It and How It Works Now
Lucia Kowaluk and Carolle Piché-Burton
e First Hundred years

e residential area of Milton-Parc and the streets surrounding it were
constructed during the second half of the 19th century to serve bourgeois families.
e Hôtel-Dieu Hospital, opened in 1862, was a focal point, built on a section of
a huge tract of land which had been owned since the 18th century by Les
Religieuses Hôpitalières de Saint-Joseph and had been founded by Jeanne Mance
in the 17th century. Part of the land not used for the hospital and convent was
developed for greystone row housing starting with Sainte-Famille Street, designed
to lead north from Sherbrooke Street, with a view directly to the Nuns’ Chapel.
e other streets from university Street to Saint Laurent Boulevard followed
rapidly as the new electric tramway, which connected Old Montreal to the flat
farmland of the Milton-Parc area, made transportation comfortable between new
residential and old commercial areas.
Following World War II, the 7- to 100-year old housing became less desirable.
Families gradually moved out, some selling to new owners, others converting the
large cottages and duplexes into rooming houses. Some buildings burned, while
others were torn down deliberately; in both cases new low-rise housing or larger
high-rises were constructed. e neighbourhood, while still very comfortable and
liveable, became shabby.
1960-1972
In the mid-1960s, when tearing down and rebuilding became the desirable form
of urban renewal, a group of developers, who were close friends, slowly bought
up 90% of the buildings that stood on the six-block area between Hutchison, Pine,
Sainte-Famille and Milton. ey offered generous prices and acted through four
different numbered companies. By 1968, they owned all but the churches, two
schools, and a handful of original houses. eir plan was to tear down everything
but the institutions and construct a new, shiny, modern city: high-rises, offices,
and commercial buildings. While the Drapeau city administration was thrilled,
the residents were alarmed, and the Milton-Parc Citizens’ Committee was born.
L u C I A K O WA L u K • C A R O L L E P I C H é - B u R T O N 2
e late 1960s was not only a time of modern urban renewal; it was also a time
of social change, working for social justice, wanting a “better world,” and fighting
back. e university Settlement on Saint urbain near Prince Arthur, part of the
late-19th century settlement movement which offered services of recreation and
education to the poor, was also part of the social ferment.
While the university Settlement was founded to serve the poor, it began to
change to working with the poor. e staff of social workers, community
organizers, and the users of the university Settlement began to organize together
to save their neighbourhood. While the overwhelming leadership of this thrust
was assumed by social workers and urban planners, residents slowly and
cautiously became involved, and their numbers grew.
From 1968 to 1972, people from the Citizens’ Committee and the university
Settlement knocked on doors; signed petitions; demonstrated in the streets;
marched to City Hall; worked with McGill university architecture students to
present alternatives to high-rises; held street festivals; tried to form a housing co-
operative; founded alternative services such as a community health clinic,
daycares, and a food-buying co-op; and held endless meetings, all the while
struggling with lengthy discussions and a commitment to democratic functioning.
At the same time, the owners of the properties (now named Concordia Estates
Ltd.) began working on Phase One of their project: the tenants in certain
designated blocks or parts of blocks were forced to move out. In May 1972, the
Milton-Parc Citizens’ Committee occupied some of the empty dwellings and,
simultaneously, a dozen particularly courageous individuals occupied the offices
of Concordia Estates Ltd. on Parc Avenue (where the tennis courts now stand).
On May 26, 1972, 9 individuals were arrested, booked at the police station, and
charged with public mischief. Following the trial of eight of those individuals, the
jury acquitted everyone on February 7, 1973. However, it “took the wind out of
everyone’s sails.” People were exhausted, and they felt they had failed.
1972-1979
Meanwhile, things were not going so well for the developers. e militant activity
of the Citizens’ Committee had drawn the attention of some of their financial
supporters. A major backer of the La Cité project, the Ford Foundation, withdrew
its funding. e worldwide oil crisis of 1972 and construction activities linked to
the 1976 Montreal Olympics, which caused a huge jump in inflation, had the effect
of severely decreasing the value of the funding planned by Concordia Estates Ltd.
for all three phases of the development. Although they proceeded with Phase One,
constructing the buildings we now have among us—an office tower, three
apartment high-rises, an underground shopping mall, and a hotel (which is now
a McGill residence)—they could not continue and decided to divide the
26 HOW WE DID IT ...
neighbourhood. Concordia continued to own the one third that was under
construction for Phase One, while the remaining two-thirds of the old original
properties came under the ownership and management of a newly-created
company, Paxmil, with offices at the northeast corner of Parc and Milton. By 1974,
neighbourhood activities were at a standstill.
But not for long. e excavations and construction involved in building Phase
One disrupted traffic for the surrounding streets. e Jeanne-Mance Street
Committee was formed with the goal of eliminating through traffic, including
buses, on Jeanne-Mance.
e tried and true method of non-violent militant action went into gear,
including petitions, door-to-door organizing, and sit-downs at intersections to
block traffic (including a “picnic supper” at the intersection of Jeanne-Mance and
Prince Arthur). e Grayson Report, a serious academic paper, presented valid
and efficient alternatives for rerouting buses and traffic.
It took some years, but eventually the City’s Traffic Department saw it our way.
An equally important result was the active involvement of a new group of
residents who joined the Milton-Parc Citizens’ Committee, where many old-
timers continued as well.
In 1977, the community learned, through the grapevine, that Concordia
Estates Ltd. and Paxmil were interested in selling off the remaining two-thirds of
their original project. Funding had dried up.
Community organizers took a fresh look at their strategy and realized a new
start was in order. e Milton-Parc saga was relaunched and the timing could not
have been better, as three important factors came together:
• e Parti Quebecois had formed government in Quebec and promised a
referendum on sovereignty. While this was exciting and positive for many,
other parts of society became very anxious, many businesses le the province,
and real estate values stagnated or plummeted. ere was no market for
Concordia’s old urban housing and the developers wanted to be relieved of it.
• e neighbourhood now had nearly ten years of experience in “militant
action”: working together, understanding the role of non-violent direct
action, trusting each other, understanding the need for giving volunteer
time, and using the principles of transparency and democratic functioning,
as well as the ability to analyze how society and the economy work. Large
numbers of residents wanted to form housing co-operatives.
• With the help of a grant from Heritage Montreal, and more help from a
newly formed Technical Resource Group (GRT) and the CDLC (Le Conseil
de Développement de Logement Communautaire), research was carried out
on the possibility of buying the property, the legal requirements of forming
housing co-operatives, and the existence of political will at all three levels of
L u C I A K O WA L u K • C A R O L L E P I C H é - B u R T O N 27
government to support and finance such a project. e research showed the

way: the political will was there, as was very helpful support for the project
from the city-wide heritage conservation movement (Heritage Montreal and
Save Montreal), and the neighbourhood was ready. On May 16, 1979, the
Government of Canada, through its housing agency the Canada Mortgage
and Housing Corporation (CMHC), bought the property for $. million
using a federal program already in place, created by the Trudeau government,
to help tenants form co-operatives.
At the time, CMHC promised to sell the properties to the Société du Patrimoine
urbain de Montréal (SPuM), a newly formed non-profit corporation created with
the help of Heritage Montreal. It gave SPuM full responsibility to manage the
properties, and made a commitment to SPuM of its intent to provide financial
support to Milton-Parc co-operatives and other non-profit associations. e first
challenge for SPuM and the Milton-Parc community was to provide a viable and
feasible Action Plan within six months.
To prepare the Action Plan, technical support was provided by the CDLC,
assisted by the newly formed Milton-Parc Technical Resource Group.
A very well thought-out Action Plan was prepared and in April 1980, CMHC
officially accepted this plan. However, CMHC indicated that future rents would
be based on market levels, and there was no guarantee the rents would remain
affordable, nor that residents would not be permanently displaced.
Needless to say, this was traumatic for the residents in Milton-Parc and the
community was quick to mobilize again. is mobilization coincided with the
coming referendum on sovereignty on May 20, 1980, and the federal government,
not wanting any unnecessary disruptions, acted quickly. e neighbourhood
successfully argued the new rents for the renovated dwellings were not to be based
on the market, but rather on rents currently paid, with modest increases. No
residents would be forced to leave their units due to financial reasons.
CMHC committed to provide substantial subsidies for the purchase and reno-
vation of the buildings to ensure the affordable rent structure, as well as the cost
of the Technical Resource Group.
A new non-profit corporation, the Société d’Amélioration Milton-Parc (SAMP),
with a board composed of residents and experts in law, architecture, urban
planning, business and community development, was formed to become the
temporary owner of the properties. SAMP would oversee the work and eventually
turn the properties over to the co-ops and other non-profits, which would then
own the properties. CMHC sold the properties to SAMP in October 1980.
e GRT was made up of 20 skilled and committed people who were social
animators, educators, architects, and administrators. Its purpose was to assist the
community, the co-ops and non-profits to create their organizations, to provide

the technical resources in relation to the renovations (prepare the plans, obtain
permit approvals, prepare and manage the tendering process and supervise the
quality, budgets and schedules of the works), and to manage financing and
relationships with the three levels of government. e GRT also facilitated the
transfer of ownership from SAMP to the individual housing co-ops and non-
profit housing associations.
1980-1987
e financing of each co-op, unique to Milton-Parc, was complex. It was subject
to certain regulations demanded by CMHC as a condition of receiving the fund-
ing, which included the generous subsidies which kept the rents low. As eventual
owner of its own buildings, each co-op and other non-profit associations would
hold a 3-year mortgage, guaranteed by CMHC, from a bank or financial insti-
tution in order to pay for its share of the renovations and purchase price. CMHC,
financed by federal taxes, would subsidize the whole project. CMHC paid the dif-
ference between the interest rate at the time and a set rate of 2%. is meant that
rents were calculated to finance the cost of a mortgage at only 2% plus property
taxes, maintenance, insurance and utilities. e rents would be below market and
would be based on the “acquired rights” of the original residents to remain in
their dwellings.
During the 3-year period when CMHC would guarantee the mortgage and
subsidize the project, it had certain requirements:
• e renovations had to meet certain standards of safety and health;

• e buildings had to be maintained in a constant state of good repair;
• At least 1% of the residents of each co-op and other non-profit had to be
eligible for an additional subsidy, bringing their rents to no more than 30%
of their very low incomes. CMHC’s financing included a specific subsidy,
rent-geared-to-income, to be used for this purpose;
• A certain percentage of each co-op and other non-profit budget had to go
toward a reserve fund to pay for major repairs, which could only be used
with CMHC’s permission;
• CMHC had to be kept up to date regarding the co-ops’ and other non-
profits’ internal functioning, with annual reports of the co-ops’ and
non-profits’ audits, annual general assembly minutes, elected officers, and
adherence to rent-geared-to-income regulations.
ere were almost 600 dwelling units in 13 buildings in Milton-Parc. e total
cost of development was $30.7 million. e CMHC, the City of Montreal, and the
Quebec Government contributed $6 million in capital subsidies. e remaining

amount was borrowed on mortgage loans and the CMHC entered into an
agreement with each co-op and other non-profit to subsidize the mortgage rate
down to 2%. In the first year this amounted to $4 million. e amount varied over
3 years, tied to the changes in the interest rate upon renewal of the mortgage loans.
e first eight co-ops self-organized through affinity very quickly (1979-80).
ese co-ops formed from the buildings where all the community organizers were
living: Du Nordet, Milton-Parc, Les Tourelles, Sainte-Famille, Concerto, Petite
Cité, Du Chez Soi, and La Tour des Alentours. CMHC required that 0% plus one
of the residents of the dwellings involved had to agree to form a co-op. ese first
eight co-ops, working closely with SAMP (which was still the owner), imme-
diately applied for, and received, their mortgage loans. From the beginning, co-ops
controlled their own finances.
e period from 1979 to 1987, when the properties were turned over to the
co-ops and other non-profits, was eight years of hard work by staff and volunteers
alike under the leadership of the director. is was creative and imaginative work.
It involved ingenious methods of problem-solving (“ere’s a problem? We’ll solve
it!”), a lot of learning about renovations and the running of co-ops and other non-
profits, and a commitment to democratic functioning.
Beginning as soon as CMHC had bought the property, the community began
to meet on a fairly regular basis. In the first year, the Action Plan was prepared
and presented to the community. At this very early stage two major and important
questions were discussed: 1) What kind of structure would be created to govern
the entirety of the community? and 2) What were the basic social values and how
would they be guaranteed for all co-ops and other non-profits? In terms of
structure, proposals included a “Federation of Milton-Parc Co-ops,” or a “Conseil
Milton-Parc.” e social values included the essentials of abolishing speculation
on any resale of property and preserving the socio-economic demographics of
the community which was primarily low-income.
e Action Plan prepared by SPuM and the community in 1979–80 provided
the following ten principles:
1. No original resident would be forced out for economic reasons;

2. e properties would be owned and administered on a non-profit basis;
3. ultimate control of the community would be in the hands of the residents;
4. Small groups would be formed to own and administer the properties;
. No original resident would be forced out because they do not wish to be
involved in the administration of the property in which they reside;
6. e buildings would be renovated;
7. Government funding from all levels would be used;
8. e resources and skills needed to provide the goals of the project would be
provided;
9. Resources which existed in the project and in the surrounding community
would be used;
10. To meet the financial goals as well as the goal of resident control, all the
properties would be transferred by May 1982.
All these goals and principles were respected. e only exception was the date
of transfer, which was pushed to 1987 in order to allow time for community
discussion on the legal form the transfer would take, the organization and
incorporation of all co-ops and other non-profits, and the completion of the
renovations.
ere was strong agreement within the community on these ten principles, as
expressed in minutes and documents that were distributed widely. Additional
principles declared right from the beginning were:
• Buildings already subdivided into rooming houses or tiny apartments would

remain that way, since they provided much-needed housing for single, low-
income residents;
• e heritage features of the buildings would be preserved and maintained;
• Buildings already used as residences could not be transformed into
commercial premises.
By 1984, seven more co-ops were organized with the help of the Milton-Parc
Technical Resource Group: Rue des Artistes, Les Jardins, Petite Hutchison,
L’Alliance, L’Escale, Les Colonnes, and La Voie Lactée. ree non-profits, Porte
Jaune, -6, and Chambrelle, were formed from buildings that housed
individuals in rooms or tiny apartments, most of whom were people who were
not interested in or able to manage their buildings without outside help. A fourth
non-profit, Chambreclerc, was set up in 1989, built on two pieces of vacant land
within the project to house previously homeless individuals.
A separate non-profit corporation, Société de Développement Communautaire
Milton-Parc (SDC), was formed to manage the commercial properties on Parc
Ave., Milton, and Prince Arthur.
In addition, two more non-profits, Société Village Jeanne-Mance and Societé
Allegro, were formed by the individuals who had previously hoped to buy their
property as private owners, the story of which is described below.
Before the Communauté Milton-Parc

We need to go back a few years. e first idea of ownership was that each co-op
and non-profit would become the sole owner of its buildings and land. However,
once the property had been turned over to SPuM, about a dozen individuals,
among the 1,000 or more residents then residing in Milton-Parc, declared their
interest in owning, as individuals, the property they lived in. eir interest was
not an unusual one in our society, in which the norm is exactly that: residents
own their property if they can afford it. However, most of the residents involved
in the project did not agree. ere were a number of reasons why:
• e ten-year struggle to save the neighbourhood had been governed by the

principle that everyone already there—most of whom, according to surveys
taken at the time, had very low incomes—could stay in their homes at rents
they could afford;
• e community activists had not given thousands of volunteer hours over
ten years so that a handful of individuals could buy property at a very low
price and then reap the benefits of a huge increase in property values which
would inevitably happen in the next few years. According to these activists,
the property had not been saved for speculation;
• As one resident said, “ey want the price of one steak at the same rate as
the whole cow.” According to one calculation, the $6 million total purchase
cost, divided by a little over 600 units, would come to an average of $10,000
per unit! Obviously this huge advantage for a dozen or so residents was out
of the question;
• SPuM, the GRT, and a large consensus in the community agreed that the
properties should be owned on a non-profit basis. is was enshrined in the
Action Plan in 1979 and was the basis on which CMHC subsequently agreed
to make its programs available when it approved the Action Plan in 1980.
Although this small group of self-interested residents was defeated, a number

of them were not interested in forming housing co-ops. With their ambition for
private ownership unrealizable, they elected instead to create non-profit housing
associations, and Société Village Jeanne-Mance and Société Allegro were born.
ree big questions remained about the future of the neighbourhood: 1) How
would the properties be protected from market pressures to increase value in a
choice location in downtown Montreal? 2) How would the project’s affordability
be ensured to protect low-income people, when they are oen pushed out as a
neighbourhood is improved? 3) How would the heritage qualities of the buildings
be preserved?
Searching for Answers to ese Questions

e community’s restrictions on affordability and architectural preservation were
unprecedented. At that time, CMHC’s equity requirements for its co-operative
projects were much less restrictive than what the community wanted and there
were no provincial or municipal heritage restrictions for Milton-Parc. But the res-
idents agreed these restrictions were essential in order to preserve the unique so-
cial and historic features of the neighbourhood. No simple legal framework to
permit these requirements appeared possible.
e first proposal came aer CMHC transferred ownership to SAMP. SAMP
decided it would sign 99-year leases with the co-ops and non-profit housing
groups. ese leaseholder agreements would contain provisions regarding
architectural preservation and new unit allocation.
e response from many of the residents who had worked the hardest to
organize the co-ops was strong opposition. ey wanted their groups to be full-
fledged owners, not some sort of tenant. SAMP said this was impossible but some
residents sought advice from other legal experts. Aer long discussion in the
community and with SAMP, it was realized that if the legal structure did not
permit such mechanisms, the legal structure would have to be amended.
e Creation of the Communauté Milton-Parc

One of Quebec’s most eminent notaries and a scholar in the matter, François
Frenette, was recruited to assist in legally structuring the Milton-Parc housing
project. He proposed the idea of a condominium in which each co-op and non-
profit would own their buildings and the land under the buildings. e land ad-
jacent to the buildings (both in the front and the back) would be held as common
property by all the co-op and other non-profit owners in Milton-Parc. Only the
occupants who live in the buildings could use those adjacent pieces of land.
Frenette suggested a creative solution whereby the entire ensemble of buildings
would be owned by the co-ops and non-profits without dividing them into indi-
vidual units, as is done in condominiums comprising separate dwellings. A dra
“Declaration of Co-ownership” (the Declaration), was formally presented to the
community on May 20, 1986.
e Declaration, however, goes further than the commercial condominiums
familiar to our society. Just as individuals purchasing a unit in a newly built
condominium project must agree to certain rules such as the number of pets or
a prohibition on changing the windows in their apartment, the co-owners—co-
ops and other non-profit groups of Milton-Parc—would enter into a co-propriety
agreement in which they would agree to allocate a large portion of newly available
dwellings to very-low and low-income households and would agree to maintain
the architectural heritage qualities of their façades.
e community continued to meet frequently, even weekly, throughout 1986

and 1987, and several refinements were made to the social and economic values:
• Residents already living in the buildings before renovations would have

acquired rights;
• Income and space requirements would apply only during the selection
process for new members;
• e acquired rights would apply to residents in perpetuity, meaning
residents would not be forced to downsize or leave if their income and
family size changed.
On June 12, 1987 all the co-ops and other non-profits signed an agreement to
accept the Declaration as the fundamental legal document describing their
ownership rights and responsibilities. e signatories included the group that had
previously wanted to have individual ownership. e final agreement included
provisions that met their concerns, namely that the organization would concern
itself exclusively with the administration of the properties. It would not take
positions on political or social issues affecting the community, without the consent
of the whole community. is agreement was draed into a private bill and
presented to the Quebec National Assembly. It was adopted on June 23, 1987 and
the Declaration became law.
e Declaration describes the governing structure of the “condominium for
social purposes”—the Communauté Milton-Parc (CMP). In legal terms, the CMP
is a “syndicate.” Each co-op and non-profit owns their buildings and the land
directly underneath their buildings while CMP owns the common land, such as
the alleyways and the yards. CMP became the governing body for the entire
neighbourhood, comprised of representatives from each co-op and non-profit.
Its collective responsibility is to preserve the properties, ensure the principles of
the Declaration are honoured by all co-ops and non-profits, maintain and manage
the common portions, protect property rights of the community, and take all
measures in the common interest.
e Declaration spells out the legally binding conditions to which the CMP,
co-ops and other non-profits must adhere:
• Milton-Parc exists to allow low- and moderate-income people access to

quality housing;
• e urban fabric and the architectural and socio-economic uniqueness of
the neighbourhood must be conserved;
• Speculation is prevented through the application of stringent mechanisms.
3 HOW WE DID IT ...
ese conditions are found in the Declaration’s “Destination Clause,” which

can only be altered with a “unanimous vote of all the co-owners.” In other words,
a majority of 100% of the co-owners would need to be achieved amongst all the
co-ops and non-profits to make any change to the guiding principles of the CMP.
When the Québec Civil Code came into force in 1994, the rules regarding
voting in a co-ownership syndicate changed. However, unanimous consent of all
co-owners to make changes directly or indirectly to the Destination Clause is still
required for the CMP, since its Declaration had been drawn up before 1994.
What has made the CMP unique is that it attaches social responsibility and
non-speculative restraints on the collective ownership of the property. is is
similar to the way any restrictions can be established in a land trust, a legal status
that is accepted and used elsewhere in North America.
In December 1987, when renovations were finished, the co-ops and non-
profits had all been formed, financing was in order, and the Declaration was
completed, SAMP and each co-op and non-profit signed the deed of sale. It was
a great day—a new chapter for Milton-Parc had just begun.
e CMP is unique in all of North America. It is the only land trust in which
co-ops or non-profits are governed by a declaration of co-ownership. It is also
unique in its conception: it is the result of a 20-year struggle undertaken by
tenants to save their neighbourhood. It is a legacy that must be preserved.
1988-2018: CMP Controls Its Neighbourhood

e fourth phase of Milton-Parc had now begun. Over the past 30 years, the res-
idents have had to manage their affairs, become landlords of very valuable prop-
erty as well as members and tenants of a co-op or non-profit, work together to
manage the land owned in common, and handle the social problems that arise
when any group of people has to collectively manage their living environment.
Soon aer the private bill was adopted, the CMP rented an office, hired a
manager to take care of the administration, and established a democratic decision-
making structure. A board of directors was elected and began holding general
assemblies, consisting of one delegate from each of its member organizations: 1
housing co-ops, six non-profit housing corporations, and the SDC (which
manages the commercial properties).
e general assemblies function according to the arrangements described in
the Declaration. Each co-owner manages its own internal operations and abides
by the conditions and restraints described in the Declaration, while the CMP
manages common concerns such as property evaluations, insurance, and land
not managed by a co-op or non-profit. It can also propose arbitration in the case
of conflict between co-owners or between the CMP and co-owners.
L u C I A K O WA L u K • C A R O L L E P I C H é - B u R T O N 3
e CMP administrators are obliged to ensure the Declaration is followed and

the Destination Clause is respected.
Municipal property taxes and school taxes are sent to the CMP in one large
invoice for the common spaces. ese are paid by the member groups according
to an ingenious system based on the amount of land each member co-op and
other non-profit manages. e result—which is very fair—is that groups with
large pieces of land around their buildings, like Co-op Milton-Parc, Co-op
Concerto, or Société d’Habitation Chambrelle, pay a much higher share of the
taxes, insurances, and fees. Co-ops and non-profits with very little land, like
Co-op Les Jardins and Société d’Habitation Chambreclerc, pay a very low share
of these shared costs. A proportional representation plan prescribed by the
Declaration is also used in weighting the votes during the general assemblies.
Regarding city property taxes, in 1987, SAMP challenged the City’s assessment
of the value of the Milton-Parc properties, which were about to be transferred to
the co-owners. In a decision dated August 27, 1987, the Bureau de Révision de
l’évaluation Foncière du Québec ruled the evaluation of the properties for tax
purposes should be based on their decreased non-market value because of the
rules preventing resale for non-speculative purposes. is was an ideal outcome,
as it was in line with the Declaration.
e CMP has been built on a solid foundation, going back to the struggle
which began in 1968. It has become a wonderful and sustained alternative to the
capitalist housing market. It has upheld the values of its residents to control their
community, manage their homes collectively, and function democratically.
For a more complete document on the Milton-Parc Project including the social
contract (the Declaration) that binds the CMP together, the entire document and
other material is available online at http://www.miltonparc.org/
October 17, 1969
Free Press
Who are the friends of Milton-Park?

Not Big Businessmen
The Concordia bosses would probably like to be thought of as progressive,
liberal-minded men. But the facts of economic control speak differently. The
Ford Foundation is a major contributor to the exploitation of black people in
American ghettos, and to strategic research that helps the United States enslave
the nations of Asia and Africa to its own economic interests. Never has a
“charitable” institution been founded on such all-consuming greed. Great West
Life is linked by directorships to companies that involve themselves in gassing
workers through negligence (INCO), manufacturing chemical weapons for the
American war machine (Canadian Industries Limited or CIL), and maintaining
the economic power of the ruling white minority in South Africa (Rothman’s).
Can the men who control companies such as these be expected to put the needs
and desires of ordinary citizens above their own profits?
Not Politicians
Not only do Concordia’s financial “friendships” explain their attitudes toward
citizens, they also say a lot about the postures of politicians. Concordia president
Gauvreau, both as a prominent civil engineer and as chairman of the MTC
[Montreal Transportation Commission], is probably on excellent terms with City
Hall. This, and Concordia’s prior involvement in Place Bonaventure, may explain
the Drapeau-Saulnier administration’s “hands off” position. Concordia also
benefits from a strange coincidence whereby members of the Richardson family
sit on both the Great West Board of Directors and on the Trudeau cabinet.
Furthermore, the influence of media czar Paul Desmarais and of such
conglomerates of economic power as the Bank of Montreal-CPR group on all
three levels of government cannot be underestimated.
Not the Universities

Members of the McGill Board of Governors are big businessmen who have
FREE PRESS 37
intimate tie-ins with the conglomerates of capital that control Concordia. The
Université de Montréal has received grants from the Ford Foundation to do social
research for Concordia.
All the power to the people!

Against the formidable power of organized finance, only the power of organized
citizens—the power of ordinary people fighting for social justice—has any
chance of winning.
Concordia’s friends
James Richardson & Sons
A family of Winnipeg grain magnates, the head of which is now a minister in
Trudeau’s cabinet.
Power Corporation
A $3 billion conglomerate, Power Corporation is 51% owned by a combination
of Paul Desmarais’ Gelco Enterprises and the Peter Thomson interests. It is
linked to major finance companies such as Laurentide Financial Corp. and Union
Acceptance Corp. Desmarais, its chief executive officer and chairman, owns four
Quebec daily newspapers (including La Presse), a chain of weeklies and several
radio and TV stations.
Ford Foundation
Along with Great West Life, the Ford Foundation is one of Concordia’s major
backers. Founded in the 1930’s as a means of evading inheritance and wealth
taxes, the Foundation is the largest “charitable” organization in the world. Some
of its “charitable” ventures have included giving the RAND corporation (an
American war research outfit) its start and buying off militant black leaders who
were a threat to white big business in U.S. cities. Ford’s support of Concordia
is an investment and not “charity.” But it did make a “charitable” donation to
a Université de Montréal group for special research in the Milton-Park area that
greatly benefitted Concordia. (N.B. Unconfirmed reports earlier had it that Ford
had withdrawn its backing of Concordia for fear of bad publicity. It is likely,
however, that at least part of the investment remains intact).
Royal Bank of Canada

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce
Investors Group
The most influential financial company in Canada. Investors Group brings

together money from five major sources (as shown here) which represent all the
important concentrations of capital in Canada.
Imperial Life Assurance Co.

This Toronto-based firm has the biggest share (30%) in Investors Group. It is
51% owned by Power Corp.
Canadian Pacific Investments Ltd.

Part of the massive Canadian Pacific Railway-Bank of Montreal empire.
Great West Life Assurance

A major investor in the Concordia project. Directors of this Winnipeg-based firm
also sit on the boards of such financial giants as the International Nickel
Company, the Bank of Montreal, Canadian Industries Limited, all the big western
grain corporations, and the South African-based tobacco concern Rothman’s of
Pall Mall Canada Ltd. Great West is 51% owned by the Investors Group.
Concordia Estates Holdings Ltd.

This is the company at the centre of the Concordia group. The President,
Brigadier J.G. Gauvreau, is a former civil engineer. He’s also Chairman and
General Manager of the Montreal Transportation Commission (MTC) and Vice-
President of Dow Brewery Ltd.
Concordia Estates Ltd.

Responsible for planning and development of the Cité Concordia project. Big
wheels in this company are A. Isseman (Chairman) and N. Nerenberg (President)
(both former). Other projects have included the posh Place Bonaventure
development.
Concordia Management Services Ltd.
Concordia Construction Inc.
Concordia Realties Ltd.
Champlain Housing Trust
Brenda Torpy
e Champlain Housing Trust (CHT), founded in Burlington, Vermont, in 1984,

was born in a small city with a big idea: by creating a stock of permanently
affordable housing, everyone could have access to a decent home, regardless of
income. is was the grand vision of a newly elected progressive government, led
by Mayor Bernie Sanders, who came into office in 1981, the same year that Ronald
Reagan began his own two-term presidency.
e Reagan Revolution forced the Sanders’ administration to develop
innovative solutions for the housing problems in Burlington, Vermont within the
context of the federal withdrawal of needed funding from affordable housing and
community development programs. Equally challenging were double-digit
mortgage rates that prevailed during the early 1980s, the threatened gentrification
of Burlington’s traditional working class neighbourhoods, and the long-standing
neglect of housing quality and affordability issues by previous mayors, who had
favored downtown commercial development and bulldozed low-income
neighbourhoods in the name of urban renewal.
A cornerstone of the progressive agenda was to open up city hall to all
citizens—especially those who had been previously excluded in decisions about
city planning and public funding. e community land trust (CLT) model
discovered by a Progressive Party alderman named Terry Bouricius looked like a
good fit. e model’s democratic structure and its commitment to permanent
affordability made a lot of sense in a city where housing costs seemed to rise in
every economic cycle; where a lack of code enforcement and the absence of
landlord-tenant law made low-income tenants nearly powerless in the overheated
housing market; and where proposed waterfront development adjacent to the
city’s lowest-income area, the Old North End, threatened further gentrification.
When Mayor Sanders created the Community and Economic Development
Office (CEDO) in 1982 to help implement his progressive agenda, work on
establishing a community land trust soon got underway. CEDO sent three
employees to the first national CLT gathering in Voluntown, Connecticut, hosted
by the Institute for Community Economics (ICE). Included in this CEDO
0 CHAMPLAIN HOuSING TRuST
delegation were Michael Monte, the City’s community development director, and
myself, as I was the City’s housing director at the time. At the Voluntown
conference, we met John Davis, who was a technical assistance provider on ICE’s
staff. A few months later, CEDO contracted with ICE to bring Davis to Burlington
in order to introduce the CLT idea to Burlington’s citizens and to see if it would
take root.
CEDO saw its primary role as engaging citizens to address their own needs
and problems and then supporting them with funding and technical assistance.
e CLT effort followed this model. As people heard about this new approach to
affordable housing, they very quickly embraced it. Stakeholders included tenant
rights activists and neighbourhood leaders, affordable housing experts, and other
advocates for social and economic justice.
e Burlington Community Land Trust (BCLT) was incorporated in 1984
aer thousands of hours of volunteer work. Recruited and coordinated by CEDO
staff, these volunteers formed by-laws, developed policies, and fashioned strategies
for funding the organization and for producing housing. Among the BCLT’s
incorporators was Howard Dean, the state’s future Governor, and Sarah Carpenter,
the future director of the Vermont Housing Finance Agency (VHFA). e Old
North End was chosen as the BCLT’s first designated Target Area.
In addition to the assistance received from both CEDO staff and Davis, the
ICE staffer assigned to Burlington under a CEDO contract, the City supported
the fledgling CLT effort with a $200,000 seed grant for operations, a pair of
million-dollar loans from the Burlington Employee Retirement Fund, and a
negotiated loan-pool from a local bank. e BCLT later received regular
municipal funding for its operations and projects through federal funds that
passed through the city’s hands, including monies provided by the federal
Community Development Block Grant and HOME programs and from local
funds disbursed by Burlington’s Housing Trust Fund.
e BCLT was the first municipally supported CLT in the united States, a
direct result of the City of Burlington’s general embrace of permanent affordability
as the only socially equitable and fiscally prudent way for the public to create and
sustain affordable housing. Bernie Sanders and his immediate successor, Mayor
Peter Clavelle, were outspoken champions of decommodified housing. Both
administrations acted to codify this principle into municipal policy and municipal
ordinances. eir goal was to ensure that any public investments in affordable
housing would go primarily—even exclusively—into housing that would be kept
permanently affordable. At the time, this was viewed as a revolutionary idea
befitting Bernie’s socialist agenda, but over time, and for very practical reasons,
this has become the accepted wisdom in Vermont.
None of several fledgling community land trusts that CEDO staff had learned
BRENDA TORPy 41
of at Voluntown were supported by local government, and without this support

they faced considerable challenges to growth and sustainability. So it was by
looking northward at a slightly different model that the CEDO team saw its first
incarnation of successful community land ownership at scale, that of Montreal’s
Milton-Parc. In 1984, Michael Monte and myself went to Montreal to visit and
were deeply inspired by the leaders of the Milton-Parc Co-op and the sight of an
entire City neighbourhood preserved for, and led by, its residents, including low
and very low income tenants. Milton-Parc exemplified the dream that BCLT
leaders had for the Old North End and over the years has provided inspiration to
them. e structure of Milton-Parc also fueled the BCLT leaders’ belief that
limited equity co-operatives had a big role to play in the city’s delivery of
affordable housing and in their own neighbourhood strategy.
us, as Burlington’s progressive leaders worked to create new resources for
the development of affordable housing, they also worked to ensure the lasting
affordability of any housing produced with those resources and engaged citizens
in campaigns to enact new laws that would protect vulnerable renters and produce
permanently affordable homes through funding and policy initiatives. is dual
commitment to expanding the supply of housing and to preserving the
affordability of that housing was woven into the Housing Trust Fund, capitalized
through a penny increase on the property tax rate; the Inclusionary Zoning
ordinance, where the affordability of all IZ units had to be preserved for 99 years;
and ordinances to protect renters by regulating the conversion of rental housing
to condominiums and mitigating the loss of existing housing because of
demolition or conversion for commercial uses.
Creating these laws required the active participation of many of the same
neighbourhood activists and housing advocates who had come together to create
the BCLT in 1984. e board and staff of the BCLT were actively involved in all
of these legislative efforts to expand funding for affordable housing, as well as
several unsuccessful campaigns to enact ordinances to protect the rights of
vulnerable renters, including an anti-speculation tax and just cause eviction rules.
ere continued to be considerable overlap between city governments, the
emerging Progressive Party rooted in the activists who had helped to elect Bernie
Sanders, and the BCLT during the latter’s early years. e BCLT’s first executive
director was Tim McKenzie, a neighbourhood activist who had helped to mobilize
voter support for Bernie’s first successful campaigns for mayor. Gretchen Bailey,
an assistant city attorney who had been one of Bernie’s first hires, conducted much
of the legal research that enabled the BCLT to cra a ground lease compatible
with Vermont law. I was the first board president of the BCLT, where I continued
to serve as the city’s Housing Director before moving briefly into a job at the
VHFA. I was succeeded in the Housing Director’s job by John Davis, the ICE
2 CHAMPLAIN HOuSING TRuST
employee who had assisted CEDO in establishing the BCLT, and I returned to
the local scene to become the BCLT’s second director in 1991.
Although Burlington was the fulcrum and the leader of the effort in Vermont
to make permanent affordability the cornerstone of all housing policy, overheated
market conditions throughout the state and a friendly administration in
Montpelier, led by Governor Madeleine Kunin, helped the state’s housing
advocates bring the CLT model and other progressive solutions to the attention
of the Vermont legislature and helped make permanent affordability a priority in
an increasing number of state laws and plans. Vermont began experiencing a wave
of speculative development in the 1980s that threatened its traditional agricultural
landscape. Conservationists and housing advocates found themselves united in
their opposition to the threat of unfettered land speculation, luxury development,
and gentrification. Vermont was also one of the states hit the hardest by the loss
of federally subsidized, privately owned rental housing as the affordability
restrictions expired on these projects.
One powerful outcome of this convergence of issues was the creation of the
Vermont Housing and Conservation Board (VHCB), funded by a portion of
Vermont’s property transfer tax to preserve open space, farms, historic landmarks,
and affordable housing. e priority recipients of the grants disbursed by VHCB
were to be a network of non-profits doing land conservation or affordable housing
that would be called upon to steward these land-based resources permanently.
VHCB helped to create and sustain the operations and projects of community
land trusts not only in Burlington but throughout the state. Indeed, this new crop
of CLTs became the principal means by which VHCB sought to accomplish its
affordable housing mission.
e BCLT was able to grow and to thrive in this policy environment where
government embraced the principle of permanent affordability and directed
capital toward sustaining the residential projects and non-profit organizations
that turned that social principle into the sticks and bricks of new housing. e
BCLT has also benefited, along with other CLTs in Vermont, from the unusual
degree of co-operation that exists in Vermont among housers, conservationists,
and preservationists. Such solidarity has helped to ensure ongoing funding for
VHCB, a primary source of capital for the housing developed by the BCLT and
by the state’s other CLTs.
As its broad policy agenda attests, the City of Burlington did not put all of its
eggs in the BCLT basket, but lent its support and provided leadership to the
creation of three other specialized housing non-profits covering a wide range of
housing needs. ese were the Committee on Temporary Shelter (COTS) to
shelter the homeless; the Lake Champlain Housing Development Corporation
(LCHDC), a consortium of local governments dedicated to affordable rental
BRENDA TORPy 43
housing in the largely suburban metro area of Burlington; and the Champlain
Valley Mutual Housing Federation (CVMHF) created to extend co-operative
housing opportunities to those who could not access conventional ownership
even with shared equity. e LCHDC, the CVMHF and the BCLT would all
engage in bringing the co-operative housing model to the fore in the greater
Burlington area. Both the Federation and the LCHDC later merged into the BCLT
to form today’s Champlain Housing Trust.
Housing Co-operatives—e Vermont Experience

From its earliest days the BCLT strategically purchased multi-family properties
in the Old North End to avert tenant displacement. e initial vision was to work
with the residents to convert these properties into small, limited equity co-
operatives. But the BCLT did not take the lead in creating this new ownership
opportunity for its residents. As the BCLT focused on their anti-gentrification
acquisition strategy and on shared equity homeownership, CEDO laid the
groundwork for the development of limited equity co-operatives and actively
engaged with others in developing state-enabling legislation for co-operative
housing, which passed in 1987.
In addition to CEDO, a few individuals moved this effort forward and key
among them was Erhard Mahnke—a Burlington resident who served on the City
Council as an independent allied with Bernie Sanders—who worked in
neighbouring Winooski as the Community Development Director. On the
council, Erhard was a strong supporter of the city’s progressive housing agenda,
and in his professional capacity in Winooski he strengthened what was a natural
bond between these two cities that had so much in common in the areas of
housing: historic working class neighbourhoods that were now among the state’s
lowest-income census tracts with very old and deteriorating housing stock; high
density; and the highest ratios of renters to homeowners in Vermont.
Winooski and Burlington worked most closely through the LCHDC
consortium, which also included on its board representatives of suburban
communities more typical of the region around Burlington: Colchester, South
Burlington and Shelburne. ese suburbs had very little rental housing, let alone
any affordable housing. It was a goal of both Burlington and Winooski to
positively engage these suburbs in the affordable housing mission through
participation in the LCHDC. e first program offered through this non-profit
vehicle was discounted rehabilitation loans and services to private landlords in
return for rent affordability controls. But when the 1987 tax reform created a new
tax-incentive rental production program (Low Income Housing Tax credits), the
LCHDC was poised to be a regional producer of new affordable rentals. It was
staffed with former Winooski Public Housing Authority Director Kenn Sassorossi
 CHAMPLAIN HOuSING TRuST
at the helm, with Amy Wright, CEDO’s Housing Project Developer, moving over
to lead project development.
In 1986 Amy Wright and Erhard Mahnke attended a conference on housing
co-operatives at the university of Wisconsin in Madison. Both Madison and
Milwaukee had mutual housing federations that acquired and rehabilitated small
rental properties and converted them to co-ops joined together within their
respective federations. is was a good model for the BCLT’s burgeoning multi-
family portfolio in the Old North End and for Winooski’s working class
neighbourhoods, and was enthusiastically embraced by the BCLT’s board and
staff. In 1989, the BCLT, Burlington and Winooski entered a three-party
agreement to create co-ops and hired legal counsel to dra model documents as
well as an organizer, John Colborn, to lead a public outreach campaign and to
train Vermonters on the model. Colborn had headed the National Association of
Students for Co-operation (NASCO) and became the founding director of the
CVMHF when it incorporated in 1990.
e first co-ops in the Federation were conversions of small rental properties
in Burlington’s Old North End and in Winooski. e LCHDC developed and built
the first new construction co-ops: Flynn Avenue with 28 homes and elma
Maple co-op with 20. Flynn was the first and last co-op financed with a blanket
mortgage and the only shared equity co-op. In order to meet the affordability
missions of all three non-profits, subsequent co-ops were funded with the same
federal subsidies and tax-incentivized investments as their rental developments.
Projects funded with these needed to be structured as individual limited
partnerships. In this hybrid model the co-op corporation derived its rights of
ownership and control through a master-lease from the partnership to the co-op.
is created zero equity co-ops accessible to very low income people. e cost of
the share equals one month’s rent that also acts as the security deposit.
e BCLT converted an old bakery into the Rose Street Artists’ co-op with 12
live-work spaces and a large interior gallery in the Target Area. It also created a
downtown co-op of 31 homes called Park Place in a historic former hotel that had
become a tenement building. In South Burlington, the BCLT and the LCHDC
partnered to create a small neighbourhood with an 18 home co-op and five shared
equity homes. e Mutual Housing Federation provided training and technical
assistance to each of the co-ops, and was governed by a board with a super
majority of co-op residents and a minority of community representatives
including the BCLT and CEDO. e federation also secured a master loan
agreement with a local bank to provide financing to the co-ops.
As the 1990s progressed and federal cutbacks deepened, the City of
Burlington, the main source of capacity funding, struggled to maintain its non-
profit housing network. e Co-op Federation had the biggest challenge because
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“My God! he’s mad!” ejaculated the young man.
“It is Claude. Don’t you know me?” pleaded the son.
“Let me go. I’ve been looking after my sister—little Sis, you know.”
“Heavens! he means Mother Flintstone!” thought Claude.
“I can’t find her. What’s become of Sis?”
“I’ll find her for you.”
“What; you’ll show me where she is?” cried the old man.
“Yes, yes. Come with me.”
In an instant Lamont’s mind changed, and he became as docile as a
lamb.
As Claude was near the house he occupied when not at home he
guided his father thither and let him inside.
Conducting him to the library, where he had just had an interview
with George Richmond, he seated his parent and took a chair
himself.
“Is she here?” asked Lamont.
“Yes; you’ll see her presently.”
“But I can’t wait. I want to see Sis now. I haven’t seen her for years,
and I want to tell her about the money I have kept for her so long.”
“What money?”
“I’ve kept it for Sis. It belongs to her—the thousands which were left
to her, you know.”
“What if Sis isn’t in need of money?” queried Claude.
“Then I’ll throw it into the fire! No one shall have it but her. I will see
to that. Who are you?”
Claude smiled grimly.
His father had not recognized him.
“Come, you don’t want Sis to have the money,” he cried, and before
the son could prevent, the other was on his feet, his eyes glaring like
the orbs of a wolf.
“I’ll have your blood if you don’t tell me!” shrieked the mad
millionaire.
“I’m your son.”
“No, you’re not! My son? It’s a lie!”
Claude saw his danger, and the madman advancing upon him made
him throw out his hand in self-defense.
“My son is at home!” cried Lamont, senior. “You are not he. I won’t
believe it!”
“But, father——”
The sentence was not finished, for all at once Perry Lamont sprang
at his son, and grabbing him by the shoulders, threw him against the
wall.
There was a startled cry on the other side of it from the woman
whose eyes seemed glued to the paper there.
“I’ll kill you like a dog if you don’t tell me where Sis is. I went to her
den—they called her Mother Flintstone, you know—but she wasn’t
there. Where is she?”
“Let me loose first.”
“And let you run off? Not much; ha! ha!” and the maniac laughed. “I
won’t do anything of the kind.”
“But I can’t show you where Sis is unless you do that. I won’t run
away, father.”
“It is false. You can’t fool me. I will hold you here till you tell the truth.”
“Well, Sis, is asleep in the room yonder.”
“Is that true?”
Claude Lamont wanted to gain time. If he could get rid of his father’s
maddened hands he might effect his escape, for just now he was in
danger.
Perry Lamont glanced toward the door, and seemed disposed to
believe his desperate son.
But suddenly he appeared to change his mind, for again his eyes
shot forth sparks of fire.
“Call her out here,” he said.
Claude’s heart seemed to sink within him.
He knew he could not call back the dead.
He wished for the door to open and admit some one; he would have
rejoiced then, with his father’s fingers buried in his throat, to have
seen Carter.
“I’ll give you one second, or to hades you go!” suddenly cried Perry
Lamont.
Claude’s blood seemed to run cold.
One second to live!
What had become of George Richmond?
Why didn’t that worthy turn up to save him in the nick of time?
Why had he guided his father to that house and not home, where he
would have had Opal for an ally?
Fate was against him.
“Quick! quick!” exclaimed the madman. “Tell me where Sis is or I will
tear your throat here!”
Claude made one last effort.
He summoned all his strength and dashed forward.
His father’s feet tripped on the carpet, and, falling, he dragged him
down.
Father and son fell in a heap on the carpet, and for half a second
seemed stunned by the tumble.
Claude was the first to recover.
He raised himself and tore himself loose from the maniacal fingers.
As he did so his father sprang up with the roar of a baffled tiger, and
launched himself forward.
It left Claude little time for reflection or action.
He saw danger ahead, and his hands were bare of any weapon.
But suddenly he snatched up a glass paper weight from the desk,
and launched it straight at his father’s face.
An arrow never went straighter to the mark than did the paper
weight. It struck the millionaire fairly in the face, and he went down
like a stricken ox.
On the carpet he gave a convulsive gasp and moved one arm; that
was all.
“He invited it,” said Claude. “He forced it upon himself. They can’t
blame me for this thing.”
Five minutes later he stood on the street, with the house darkened
behind him and the glim of the lamps in his eyes.
He looked like Cain; the brand was on his brow.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
CARTER’S ESCAPE.
We left Carter in durance in the dungeon where the strange

explosion had taken place.
Truly the detective was in the direst straits, and he could not forget
the writing on the wall.
He did not know who “Lewis Newell” was, and he did not stop to
inquire.
The sentence said that Opal Lamont, the fair daughter of the
millionaire, was responsible for the prisoner’s fate, and this set the
detective to thinking.
Perhaps the house to which he had been decoyed belonged to Perry
Lamont, like another house he knew of.
He recalled his visit to the nabob’s mansion, where he had
confronted Opal, and he recalled as well her demeanor.
That she had revengeful blood he well knew.
Her beauty was tigerish.
But first of all the detective wanted to get out of the dark place, and
he resolved that it should not hold him long.
How to get out was the question, but for all this he set about it with
all his wits at work.
The singular odors arising from the bomb had not overcome him
longer than a few minutes, and now the dungeon seemed fairly free
of them.
Once more he went around the walls and sounded them again. He
stooped where he had seen the flash of light as the bomb burst, and
found that the wall had yielded.
A stone was loosened, and this gave him hope.
Beyond the wall must lie liberty.
With an energy born of despair Carter toiled until he had made a
hole underneath the wall large enough to admit his body, and he did
not hesitate to squeeze through it.
Beyond the wall sure enough lay freedom, for he felt the cool night
air on his cheeks and found himself in a cramped back yard.
Out of durance at last, Carter breathed a prayer of thankfulness and
filled up the hole.
He stood for some little time in the yard, and then cleared the fence
which stood between him and the street.
Half an hour later he might have been seen to enter Bristol Clara’s
house.
The woman uttered a cry as she saw him, and pulled him forward.
“Thank Heaven!” she cried; “but why didn’t you come sooner?”
“I couldn’t. Circumstances prevented,” said the detective, with a grim
smile, which Bristol Clara did not understand.
“What’s happened, girl?”
“Murder!”
“Where?”
“There!”
The woman pointed across the room toward the next house and
looked at Carter.
“Who committed it?” he asked.
“Claude Lamont.”
“Then they’re even,” was the detective’s answer.
Clara did not reply, but led the detective to the peephole, and bade
him look.
The room beyond the partition was dimly lighted, but he could see its
appointments and single tenant.
A man was stretched on the floor, silent and still.
“That’s the victim,” said the woman at his side.
“Who is he?”
“Perry Lamont.”
“And you say Claude did it? His son?”
“His son. I saw the whole affair.”
“Tell me all about it, Clara.”
Bristol Clara did so, and the detective listened without once
interrupting the woman.
“I must see the man yonder,” said Nick.
“That’s easy. The house is tenanted only by the dead. You can easily
get inside.”
It did not take Carter long to reach the room where Perry Lamont lay.
He raised the man’s head and saw the dark spot made by the
murderous paper weight; then he lowered it again to the floor.
He searched the room thoroughly, and found more than one thing
which told him that it had been one of Claude Lamont’s nests.
At last he rejoined Clara in the other house.
“Now for the round-up,” said he.
The woman looked at him, but did not speak.
“You once asked me who killed Mother Flintstone,” said Nick.
“Yes.”
“I know.”
“Of course you do. You find out all these things. I never doubted that
you would reach the end of this trail.”
“Well, woman, I can tell you now.”
Bristol Clara leaned forward, and Carter whispered a word into her
ear.
“My God! you don’t mean that?” cried the woman, as she recoiled,
with very little color in her face.
“Every word of it.”
“It cannot be.”
“It is true.”
“Then go and do your duty;” said she. “Don’t let the guilty escape,
Mr. Carter.”
“I don’t intend to. I’ll see you later, Clara. Only keep a watch over the
man in yonder. The murderer may come back. Perhaps it was self-
defense, but he isn’t remorseful. It is murder all the same.”
The detective made his way from the house and to another part of
the city. He had found in the desk a bit of paper, with a scrawled
address thereon.
It was a certain number in Brooklyn, and inside the hour the
detective was across the river.
It did not take him very long to reach the house, which he found
darkened and silent, but his ring brought footsteps downstairs and to
the door.
As the portal opened Carter caught sight of an old man’s face, and
he addressed him.
“I desire to see Mr. Holden, your roomer.”
“He’s sound asleep, sir.”
“I must see him all the same. Which room does he occupy?”
The detective pushed forward, with one hand on the old man’s arm,
and the old fellow seemed to suspect the truth.
“Don’t disturb my wife. She’s sick upstairs. You shall see Mr. Holden.
I hope he isn’t a fugitive from justice, sir?”
There was no answer by the detective, for the old man opened a
door and motioned Nick across another threshold.
As Carter entered the room a human figure sprang from a bed and
stood on the carpet before him.
“How are you?” said the detective.
The reply he got was a snort like a sound from a restive tiger, and
George Richmond, brought to bay, threw a swift glance toward the
door.
“What’s wanting?” he demanded.
“I want you.”
“What for?”
“For conspiracy.”
The man before Carter seemed to catch his breath.
It was not so bad after all.
In fact, a grim smile appeared at the corners of his mouth and his
look softened.
“Who are you?” he next asked.
“Come, you know me, George,” said the detective. “I’m not
disguised.”
“Well, here I am.”
The half-dressed man stepped forward, but the moment Carter
advanced a step he picked up a chair and with the fury of a maniac
threw it above his head.
The old landlord behind the detective uttered a terrified cry and
retreated, and as he held the only light there was, the room was
wrapped in darkness.
Carter struck a match, and at the same time thrust forward his
revolver.
But the match revealed nothing.
George Richmond was gone!
For half a minute Carter stood like a person in a dream, but a
sudden cry from the old man aroused him.
“He’s crept under the bed, sir,” was the cry.
With a light laugh Carter sprang forward and caught hold of the foot
he found.
The next moment a bullet whizzed past his head and then he
dragged the rascal forth.
Lying on the floor, handcuffed, George Richmond looked up into
Carter’s face and grinned.
“For conspiracy, eh?” he said. “That’s news to me.”
“It’s better for that than murder,” was the answer, and then Carter
took his prisoner away.
“Now for the other birds,” said the detective, as he turned from the
station house.
He proceeded uptown and, late as it was, rang the bell of the Lamont
mansion.
For some time no one answered him, and then he heard footsteps
inside.
“It’s Opal herself,” thought Carter, as he waited for the door to open.
Yes, it was the handsome daughter of the dead millionaire, and she
maintained her composure as she looked into the detective’s face.
“It’s a late call, miss,” said Carter, as he stepped inside. “But it is a
case of necessity. I’ve found your father.”
“Indeed?”
How terribly cool this girl was.
“Yes; he’s been found and will be home shortly.”
“That’s clever of you. I did not know you were looking for him. He
went off a little unexpectedly, you see——”
“I understand. He is dead——”
“Father dead?”
It was a real start now, but in a moment Opal regained her
composure.
“Miss Lamont, did you ever know a man named Lewis Newell?”
She fell back and seemed to gasp for breath.
“Lewis Newell?” she echoed, trying to become calm again. “I don’t
know that I ever knew such a man.”
“You did not decoy him to a dungeon? You did not coolly let him
perish there? I’ve read his last words on the wall, miss. I know that
that is not your only crime!”
“It is false!”
She looked defiant and her eyes flashed.
“There’s another, miss,” continued Carter.
“You dare not say that again.”
“I say it again. There’s another crime. It is the greatest one of all.”
“What is it, pray?”
“The murder of Mother Flintstone!”
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
JUSTICE’S ROUND-UP.
Opal Lamont seemed to grow into a statue before the detective.

She did not move a muscle, but her face grew white, and the
detective thought she would sink to the floor.
But suddenly she started up and calmly invited Carter into the parlor.
The detective accepted and watched her like a hawk, for had not she
once faced him with a revolver, and was not this the woman named
by “Lewis Newell” on the wall of the dungeon?
Opal Lamont seemed calm now.
She faced the man of many trails and even smiled.
“The murder of Mother Flintstone?” she said, recalling the detective’s
words in the hall. “You accuse me of that, do you?”
“Yes.”
“Let me see your proofs, please.”
Carter dived one hand into his bosom and drew forth a little packet,
upon which the eyes of Opal Lamont were riveted from the first.
He had never shown this to any one.
No one knew that he found it in an obscure corner of Mother
Flintstone’s den the night he went thither with Mulberry Billy, the
street waif, and the old woman’s “chum.”
Opal leaned forward and watched the hands of the detective open
the packet.
She never took her eyes from the “find,” and when the last bit of
covering had been taken off she appeared to grow white.
One-half of a ring lay in Carter’s hand, and he glanced from it to the
immobile face of the millionaire’s daughter.
“You found that in the house, I suppose?” asked Opal.
“Yes; in the darkest corner, not far from the spot where you struck
the blow.”
“Is that all?”
“Not quite.”
“You need not go on. Look at me, Mr. Carter. It was for the honor of
this house. She was wicked.”
“She was your father’s sister!”
“She made a bad match. She was disowned, or, rather, she
disinherited herself.”
“But that was no excuse for the crime.”
“She might have paraded the relationship before the world,” cried
Opal. “She was positively dangerous. She was a perpetual menace.
It was dreadful.”
“You took it upon yourself to put her out of the way. You went to the
house——”
“To silence her tongue!” broke in Opal Lamont. “Murder was not in
my mind at first. But she taunted me; she laughed at me when I
offered to make her rich. She even threatened to appear in public
and boast of the kinship. That was more than I could stand.”
“You struck her then?”
“I did. I broke the ring with the blow. I did not miss it till I came home.
The other half strangely clung to my finger till I reached this house. I
thought I had lost the rest on the street.”
“You nearly involved others in that crime.”
“How’s that?”
“Your brother was for a time suspected of the murder, and then his
chum, George Richmond.”
“Did it deceive you?”
“For a time. I traced out the ownership of the ring. I did it with the
utmost secrecy. But a short time ago I half believed that one of them
was the guilty person, but I am undeceived now.”
A haughty smile came to the girl’s lips.
She made an impatient gesture and then said:
“Let us dismiss these things. We can come back to them, you know.
You said a while ago that father was dead.”
“He is.”
“Where is he?”
“In one of the many houses he owned.”
“I thought he would take his life in his madness. He would have
given his wealth for the keeping of the secret of the kinship. How did
he do it?”
For a moment Carter was silent.
“It was not suicide,” said he, looking at Opal. “It was the greater
crime—murder!”
She started like one electrified.
“Another murder? I want to see him avenged, even if I have hands
that are red! I want you to take the trail of his slayer. You will do this,
Mr. Carter? You won’t refuse to become the servant of your human
quarry?”
“It is no mystery,” was the reply. “The murder of your father is not a
puzzle!”
“Then you know——”
“I know, for I have a living witness.”
Opal was silent; but her deep eyes seemed to pierce the detective
through and through.
“I’m calm now. Name him.”
At this moment the front door opened and some one came in.
“It is Claude, my brother,” said the girl, scarcely above a whisper.
“Wait a minute. He may go upstairs.”
Carter looked toward the door and seemed to smile.
“Call him in here. His coming will answer the question you have just
put.”
Opal sprang across the carpet and opened the door, revealing the
figure of Claude in the main hall.
“This way, Claude,” said she. “A gentleman wants to see you.”
It was a lightning glance that passed from the hallway to the man in
the parlor.
Claude Lamont knew the detective at once.
He hesitated, but Opal clutched his sleeve and pulled him forward by
main force.
“You know this man. It is the trailer,” she said.
A dark scowl came to the young man’s face.
“I know him!” he almost hissed.
The next instant the daughter turned again to Carter and exclaimed:
“Now, go on. You said you knew who killed father. Name the
murderer.”
The hand of the detective was raised as his figure straightened, and
in a second it covered the young man before him.
“There’s the man!” was all he said.
Though he spoke in low tones the words seemed to ring throughout
the handsome parlor.
Claude Lamont grew white and Opal fell back.
Suddenly, however, she started forward and paused in front of her
speechless brother.
“Is it true?” she cried.
There was no answer.
“You must speak! You must tell the truth. My hands are red and
yours seem to be! You have heard this merciless trailer. He says you
are a parricide! Is it true? Before Heaven, answer me, Claude
Lamont!”
The lips of the young sport moved, but no words issued forth.
He seemed to have been struck with palsy.
“You heard me, murderer!” cried Opal, flinging herself upon her
brother. “You must not stand there like a log and say nothing. You
shall tell the truth. You did it.”
Claude flung her off and she nearly toppled against the mahogany
table.
“I did it, and under the circumstances I would do it again!” he
exclaimed. “He was coming at me like a wild beast, and I had to fight
or perish.”
“Swear this!” cried the girl.
Claude raised one hand above his head.
“Where did you find him?”
“On the street.”
“But you did not bring him home?”
“I did not. I took him to one of our houses——”
“And killed him there? Murderer!”
That instant, with the fury of a madman, Claude turned upon his
sister and covered her white face with his quivering hand.
“Murderer, eh? What are you? Don’t you know that the curse of
blood has been upon this house for years? The curse of blood and
money! Nearly a century ago one of your ancestors murdered his
bride, and ever since the stain has been upon the house. It has
skipped a few generations, but it is with us now. Richmond and I
have kept your red secret. We know who killed Mother Flintstone.
Does the detective know?”
“He knows,” calmly answered Opal.
“And does he know that the girl called Margie Marne is the
grandchild of Mother Flintstone?”
Nick nodded.
“That’s all.”
Claude Lamont turned and stalked coolly from the room.
At the door he stopped and looked back.
“I’ll be on hand when wanted,” he said. “It was self-defense. I had to
take the old man’s life.”
Carter and Opal heard him on the stairs, and in a few moments they
heard a door shut overhead.
Long before morning a policeman stood guard over the dead
millionaire’s mansion.
The night passed slowly.
New York was getting ready to awake to the solution of another
murder mystery and another crime.
The detective was making the last move in the office of the chief of
police, who had listened to the story of his last trail.
George Richmond lay in the station-house cell fast asleep, just as if
he had never been concerned in the plot to rob Perry Lamont, the
millionaire, with the aid of his scapegrace son.
The morning broke.
Carter went to the Lamont mansion.
Upon parting the night before Opal had pledged her honor that she
would greet him when he came again.
He entered the house, speaking first to the guardian at the door, who
assured him that all was well, and then he entered the parlor.
He rang the silver call bell on the table, and a servant entered.
“Your mistress?” said he.
“She is upstairs.”
Something in the servant’s tones attracted the detective, and he
bounded up the steps.
Into the girl’s boudoir he burst, to stop just beyond the threshold.
One glance was enough—one look at the form lying on the couch
satisfied the detective, and he did not remove the black-handled
dagger from the blood-flecked bosom.
Claude was found fast asleep and was taken away, but the
murderess was left alone.
The trail was ended.
Opal, the murderer of Mother Flintstone, was past reach of judge or
jury, and the court acquitted Claude, for Bristol Clara, the only living
witness, had to testify in his favor.
George Richmond was tried for conspiracy, and, as the law had long
wanted to get another hold on him, he was sent “up the river” for a
long term, which proved his last, for he died in Sing Sing.
The outcome of the detective’s trail was a startling surprise to
Gothamites and became the talk of the town.
Margie Marne received a goodly share of the Lamont wealth, and
afterward married, while Mulberry Billy, who played no insignificant
part in the Mother Flintstone affair, was placed beyond want by
Margie, who had formed an attachment for the boy.
It afterward turned out that Lewis Newell was a man who once
persecuted Opal with his attentions, and the girl, with the coolness of
a Borgia, decoyed him to his doom and thus began her career of
crime.
Carter was highly complimented upon the result of his last trail, but
he will never forget his adventure in the dungeon to which he had
been decoyed by the daughter of the millionaire, nor the coolness
with which she met the terrible charge he brought home to her under
her own roof.
THE END.
The title of the next volume of The New Magnet Library, No. 836,
is “The Heart of the Underworld,” by Nicholas Carter. The story leads
you through dark and devious ways of crime, through a labyrinth of
mystery and apparent defeat, out upon the broad highway of justice
—where crime is punished and wrongs are righted. The great
detective is the guide through this maze, and those who follow him in
his perilous adventures will find themselves thrilled from start to
finish.
The S. & S.
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why every up-to-date dealer carries a good assortment of
them on his shelves.
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Villages in Cities: Community Land Ownership and Cooperative Housing in Milton Parc and Beyond 1st Edition Joshua Hawley

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Villages in Cities: Community Land Ownership and Cooperative Housing in Milton Parc and Beyond 1st Edition Joshua Hawley

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Villages in Cities : Community Land

Ownership and Cooperative Housing in

Cooperative Rule Community Development in Britain s

Wind Power And Public Engagement: Co-Operatives And

Rethinking the Economics of Land and Housing 1st

Beyond Yugoslavia Politics Economics and Culture in a

Land How the Hunger for Ownership Shaped the Modern

The Power of Individual and Community in Ancient Athens

Urban Private Housing in Nigeria: Understanding

Cities Beyond Borders Comparative and Transnational

community organizer extraordinaire

Montreal • New York • Chicago • London

Black Rose Books No. SS398

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Villages in cities / Josh Hawley and Dimitrios Roussopoulos,

Issued in print and electronic formats.

1. Housing--Canada--Case studies. 2. Housing, Cooperative--

HD7287.72.C3V55 2018 307.3'360971 C2018-906180-4

C.P. 35788 Succ. Léo Pariseau

USA/INTERNATIONAL CANADA UK/EUROPE

Black Rose Books is the publishing project of Cercle Noir et Rouge

18 January 1971 MPCC Introductory Pamphlet

24 Milton-Parc: How We Did It and How It Works Now

36 1969 Free Press

39 Champlain Housing Trust

51 1970 Architecture Canada Newsmagazine Debate

55 Montreal and Boston: Intertwined Destinies

66 Spring-Summer 1971 BULLDOZER: Bulletin of the MPCC

72 1972 Community Press (formerly the BULLDOZER)

98 Housing Co-ops: Citizen Control or Social Service

108 1979 Letter from Lucia Kowaluk to Phyllis Lambert

122 Social Production of Housing

130 1983 CMHC Press Release on the Inauguration of Milton-Parc

134 Interview with Dimitrios Roussopoulos

146 Interview with Lucia Kowaluk

155 Appendix A: Financial and Technical Participation

157 Appendix B: Timeline of Milton-Parc: 1979-1987

162 About the authors

“Milton-Parc is also much more—it is people, people getting

LIKE POLLuTION, gentrification cannot be contained by borders. A pollutant

Land ownership has always been central in questions of economic devel-

people and counts nearly one billion people as members.2

Milton-Parc and the Community Land Trust Movement

market and turning it over to collective, community ownership should only be

CLTs, the Neighbourhood, and the City

municipalization of urban land.” e Front d’action politique (FRAP: the acronym

e More ings Change

aﬄuent tenant base. Herongate, a largely family-oriented working-class

If we cannot stop Concordia [Timbercreek], the people who live in

primarily as Milton-Park, especially in English documents. Over the years, the

History Of The Committee

The Milton-Park Citizens’ Committee outlined its three major goals:

Sept.–Oct.: The Committee met unsuccessfully with Concordia on the question

October 1968: The Committee presented a brief to the Hellyer Commission on

CITIZEN POWER: The fundamental principle of the Milton-Park Committee is that

Despite Concordia’s eight year neglect of much of their property, “restoration

The Activity Committee

SO IT IS TIME TO MAKE A STAND

CITIZEN POWER WILL STOP CONCORDIA