A citizen was complaining that there was no children playground in Parc Jarry, since summer 2006.
The old playground had been closed due to the re-development of Parc Jarry, according to a plan which had been the object of public consultations, in 2005. During the said consultations, however, the playground had been identified as a priority. The implementation of the re-development plan took a long time, partly because the site had to be decontaminated first. At the end of 2006, the City called for outside tenders to carry out this major re-development project. However, the evaluation grids of the tenders were later modified by Ville de Montréal and, as a result, the tender process had to be started over again. According to the information we received, the re-development of Parc Jarry should be completed by summer of 2008.
The Ombudsman de Montréal contacted the Service du développement culturel, de la qualité du milieu de vie et de la diversité ethnoculturelle to explore if, in the meantime, a playground could be made available to children.
The response to our request was positive and Ville de Montréal proceeded to the temporary restoration of the old playground which children had access to, in the summer of 2007.
