City of Montreal, insurers question future of basement apartments after floods
CTV
Pasquale Monaco says he’s debating whether to keep renting out the two-bedroom basement apartment of the Montreal building he owns after it was flooded — again — in August, when the remnants of tropical storm Debby sent four feet of water rushing into the space.
Pasquale Monaco says he’s debating whether to keep renting out the two-bedroom basement apartment of the Montreal building he owns after it was flooded — again — in August, when the remnants of tropical storm Debby sent four feet of water rushing into the space.
Monaco says the basement of the five-unit building in the St-Leonard borough has been flooded eight times in the last five years, including five times with more than three feet of water.
“I don't feel right renting it to anyone because I already know that down the line they're going to lose everything they have,” he said in a phone interview.
Last week, in comments to Montrealers whose homes had been flooded, a member of the city's executive committee said that living in basement apartments may eventually become a thing of the past — at least in some places.
“I think that in the future we won’t be able to have any more housing in the basement,” Maja Vodanovic, responsible for waterworks at the city, told a council meeting.
While Montreal’s mayor later said that any bylaws limiting basement apartments would apply only to new construction in specific flood-prone areas, some experts and insurers are saying it's time to have a conversation on where and whether below-ground dwelling is feasible as extreme rainfall events become more common.
The Insurance Bureau of Canada recently described the Aug. 9-10 flooding caused by the remnants of Debby as the costliest severe weather event in Quebec’s history, surpassing the 1998 Ice Storm, with an estimated $2.5 billion in insured damage.
