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Since 2013, Cliche has been working for some of the developers whose land he negotiated to acquire while working for the city. He’s been registered to lobby Montreal and Transport Quebec for the developers’ side for zoning and road access in the development zone.

“The city could use its power to expropriate,” Ducks Unlimited’s Filion said of the Manchester Brighton/Uni-Dev land.

“They (the city) saw there were holes. I’d imagine they’re capable of saying ‘If it’s not for sale do we want (to expropriate)’? They know their power, more than us.”

In fact, Terrebonne, north of Montreal, said in June it would expropriate land from holdout owners for a similar 50-50 residential-conservation project.

In a final wrinkle, the Coderre administration’s new land-use plan not only leaves the Manchester Brighton/Uni-Dev property unprotected, it marks a chunk of it near Gouin for residential development. But in what appears to be another contradiction from the city, a map with the eco-territory zone that Coderre and other city officials presented on Friday shows all of the Manchester Brighton/Uni-Dev strip shaded green for conservation.

So is the city going to wreck the value of an owner’s land by hemming it in and blocking its development? Or is it going to make its owner richer by allowing the land to have the only new residences that can be built inside a 180-hectare nature reserve?

Time will tell.

lgyulai@montrealgazette.com

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