Massive downtown project to get no citizen hearings

The massive downtown project proposed by the Weston-Loblaw's-Selfriges people will not face any sort of citizen-scrutiny.
  Under complicated rules enacted a few years ago, a sufficient number of residents had to sign a petition to start any opposition to the project, which will see the demolition of the Hotel de la Montagne, Thursdays and other buildings. It will also add a floor atop of Ogilvy's.
  The excellent Ville Marie borough rep Anik de Repentigny told me today that zero such signatures have been submitted.
  That means that the project is now entirely in the hands of the local CCU. These architecture boards made up of a combination of municipal mayors or councillors and volunteers, often professionals in architecture-related spheres of interest.
  The CCUs are wildly unpredictable. Near where I live, for example, the NDG CCU exempted Tony Magi from certain construction requirements, such as placing wires underground in his ugly development on Upper Lachine.
   At other times they'll fuss and battle over tiny proposals and deny them outright.
 The names of CCU members aren't always even easy to find out, in one case I needed a multitude of phone calls to get one list.
  Plans for the Ogilvy's project, as has come to be known, is shown at left. It entails the redoing of the entire side of Mountain except for the building at the corner of De Maisonneuve and the re-make of the middle chunk of the east side of Crescent between St. Cat and De Maisonneuve.