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Mélanie
Robitaille
I have been a partner at Rachel Julien for 10 years and I hold the position of vice‐president general manager. I developed an expertise in real estate development, an environment that was completely new to me considering my early career in actuarial. My duties led me to assume a central role in business development, finance, sales and marketing as well as legal and corporate affairs for Rachel Julien. This is what represents my main strength today, understanding the micro and macro environments of real estate and to lookout for new trends to optimise the understanding of new challenges that a company must face. I am fully involved in the industry in various ways, notably as a participant in the table of housing partners of the City of Montreal and as a member of the CAMU [Comité Affaires Municipales et Urbanisme (CAMU)] of APCHQ Montreal. I also contribute to the influence of eco‐ responsible constructions by hosting conferences on sustainable real estate development.
PROJECT
We want to develop a project with exemplary environmental performance for our new mixed real estate project in Montreal, which will be composed of residential, social housing and commercial components. This entire project would be designed based on proven passive environmental strategies. We would like this project to inspire promoters and developers who wish to reproduce the concept everywhere across Quebec, due to the optimal consideration of the microclimatic conditions of the site, to an envelope reaching performance levels of 20% higher than the requirements of the National Building Code, to an exemplary and innovative management of residual materials, to an exemplary attitude towards water management and a general concern to limit carbon emissions, from design to operation of the building. In this project we want to integrate urban agriculture, an operation that will make a major contribution to the reduction of greenhouse gases. We will also try to explore the feasibility of incorporating a green mobility service within the community and finally the integration of workshops for artists in the form of collective workshops or Fab Labs open to the community.
Last year we participated and we were selected as finalists as part of the international call for proposals C40 ‐ Reinventing Cities launched by the city. We worked on this proposal for over a year with professionals that have an internationally recognized practice in terms of sustainable mixed development. Although we did not win this call for proposals, we believe that our new project site presents a perfect opportunity to be able to carry out a project in line with the concepts developed in the call for proposals for C40.
MOTIVATION FOR AND COMMITMENT TO CREATING A BETTER AND MORE SUSTAINABLE PLANET
I am committed to protecting the planet that our children will inherit and I am fortunate to be able to do so within my company by creating eco‐responsible projects that enhance the cultural heritage and offer new possibilities to the community. I sincerely believe that with this project, we will be able to respect our values in terms of sustainable development and offer a better quality of life to citizens, but also to sensitise the community to adopt a more eco‐responsible lifestyle.
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