City of Westmount may sue over MUHC’s noisy ventilators

The city of Westmount is considering legal action to stop what it calls excessive noise at the McGill University Health Centre's new superhospital site.

People who live near the Glen site in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce say the hospital's ventilation system is so loud that it's affecting their quality of life.

[It's] as though someone has moved my house to a runway at Trudeau Airport.- Dorothy Lipovenko, lives across the street from MUHC

“One is a roaring — like massive numbers of waterfalls — and the second is as though someone has moved my house to a runway at Trudeau Airport,” said Dorothy Lipovenko, who lives across the street from the new superhospital.

She emailed a complaint to SNC-Lavalin. The company, which is overseeing construction at the site, offered Lipovenko noise-cancelling headphones as a temporary solution.

"I gather they look like the construction mufflers that workers would wear to keep noise out. How am I supposed to function with that? Wear that in the house during the day? Put my head on a pillow at night with this kind of thing? It seemed incredulous — I didn't even respond," she said.

“I don't believe any home owner, no matter where they live, should be expected to consider this normal.”

Westmount hires sound engineers

Sound engineers, hired by the city of Westmount, tested the decibel levels and found  they were above the acceptable norm.

Westmount city councillor Christina Smith said even though the hospital site is in NDG it must still comply with noise bylaws in Westmount, which neighbours the borough.

City officials sent SNC-Lavalin a lawyer's letter, but Smith said the response they got was not encouraging.

“They're going to continue to study and try and find a solution to the problem, but we don't have a fix yet — and we need a fix,” Smith said.

SNC-Lavalin said it is working on finding a solution and will not comment until then.