We fall woefully below the standard urban minimum of 2k hectares green space per 1k inhabitant.
If you subtract Angrignon and Mount Royal parks, our park situation is abysmal indeed.
The Projet Montreal administration was swept in with bold environmental promises but have been blind their own contribution to the ongoing erosion of green space.
There is a simple solution: ban councilors from sacrificing public green space.
City councillors have long reduced Montreal's green space by handing it off to groups that they feel will provide them votes in coming elections.
Take the example of St. Raymond's parish in lower NDG (below the tracks on Demaisonneuve and west of Decarie).
The area contains only one-tenth the standard urban minimum of green space.
That tiny sliver of remaining green space is concentrated in the 270,000-square foot Oxford Park and councillors have been permitted to parcel it off a staggering pace.
One third of that precious green space in the park was given away over the last two decades.
Firstly, the grass soccer field was fenced off and replaced with plastic, costing 70,000 square feet.
Another 10k of green was taken away for a community center.
Then an additional 5k square feet claimed for a bocce court.
Then another 12k was paved over for an oversized basketball facility.
The basketball court was particularly galling, as the self-proclaimed "green" Projet Montreal city councillor Peter McQueen had 12,000 square feet of green space paved over without any discussion with local stakeholders. The outdoor court sits 40 yards from a newly-built public indoor basketball court.
To make matters worse, the borough last year graveled over an 1,000 square feet of green park space for an old abandoned shipping container, which will be purportedly used one day to give out crayons to summer camp kids, a function that could have been easily handled by the adjacent community center.So in total the 270,000 square feet of green space has been whittled down by about one-third without any consultation or thought to its impact.
In this case - and surely other areas have seen their parks eroded in the same way - the borough overlooked another possible solution that would have prevented the senseless loss of green space.
The city owns a nearby 300,000 square foot parking lot and warehouse facility at Madison and St. James.
It is fenced off from the public and was once partially used as an environmental recycling dump.
The area surrounding that 300,000 city space are getting rapidly developed, so there's little valid argument that a sprawling city truck parking lot fulfills the best-usage criteria for that land.
The trucks and storage space on the 300,000 square feet city lot could be relocated to a more suitable nearby industrial area like Ville St. Pierre and this newly-freed up area used to create recreational facilities or green space.
So far municipal authorities have been unwilling or unable to make a better use of their sprawling snow truck parking lot but have had no difficulty whittling away the precious green space in the area.
If a municipal administration wishes to represent good environmental practices it needs to walk the walk and not just talk the talk.
It must threaten with banishment any councillor who gives away a single blade of public green space.