City officials in the Montreal suburb of Longueuil, Que., and the owner of the decaying Complexe Cousineau mall are at an impasse over the site’s future, the Globe and Mail reported.

While the city has pushed for redevelopment to address the housing crisis, the mall’s owner, local developer Maurice Benisti, has resisted, leaving the once-thriving property in disrepair, according to the Globe.

The publication reported that the mall is now a shell of its former self. Ongles Cartise, a nail salon, is the last remaining business on the mall’s southeastern façade. Crumbling signs and online archives reveal the exodus of a driving school, a martial-arts gym, a convenience store, and other businesses over the past two decades.

“It’s really a disgrace to the neighbourhood,” said Longueuil Mayor Catherine Fournier told the Globe in December. “People are embarrassed, people talk to us about it.”

Fournier told the Globe that she envisions a mixed-use development that includes market-rate and social housing, shops, and office spaces for non-profits. The site, according to the mayor, represents the Saint-Hubert district’s largest potential for redevelopment amid a housing crisis that has driven up rents and reduced vacancy rates to just 1.3%.

However, Benisti, who purchased the mall for $11 million in 2009 through a numbered company, has shown no interest in redeveloping or maintaining the property, the Globe reported. In a phone interview with the publication, he accused the city of overstepping its authority.

“Look, it’s my place and I decide what to do,” Benisti told the Globe. “Each one has to be responsible for his own, and it’s not by bullying a citizen who pays taxes that they’re going to win.”

Benisti has racked up 122 unpaid fines totalling $163,716 for urban-planning and fire safety violations, according to the Globe. Despite these fines, the property’s value rose from $12.7 million in 2020 to $15.4 million in 2023, according to municipal records, the Globe reported.

The mall’s decline has also drawn criticism from tenants. Metro, which operates a grocery store and pharmacy on the site, successfully sued Benisti’s company in 2022 over unsafe conditions, according to the Globe. A judge described a neglected property rife with potholes, garbage, and uncollected snow. Inside, break-ins left behind vandalism, syringes, and frozen sprinkler pipes.

Despite court orders to improve conditions, Metro spokesperson Geneviève Grégoire told the Globe that problems persist.

Urban planning expert David Gordon from Queen’s University called the site “a classic case of a ‘dead mall’ that is not quite dead yet” in an interview with the Globe. He estimated it could accommodate 700 residential units in mid-rise buildings, or more if towers were built.

For now, the city’s options remain limited. Fournier noted that legal barriers prevent intervention without a court order, and expropriation could lead to lengthy, costly litigation.

“The situation is the sole responsibility of the owner,” Fournier wrote in a recent social media post, calling the current stalemate “unacceptable.”

Although Fournier extended an invitation to discuss the site’s future, Benisti declined, according to the Globe.

Photo: Agora Montreal