Considering a new semi-detached home near Mount Royal also means wondering what life would be like across the river. Living in Sainte-Julie or Mount Royal: the two towns differ in size, density and everyday language, yet they share a rare trait, both having been planned as a whole, a century apart.

To be clear, we mean the Town of Mount Royal, a reconstituted town in the Montreal agglomeration, in the middle of the island, not the mountain nearby. The comparison below relies on Statistics Canada's 2021 Census and on what the two towns and the Vilamo neighbourhood publish, with no bias toward either.

Mount Royal, a model town born of a tunnel

The Town of Mount Royal tells its own origin story: the Canadian Northern Railway, which was boring a tunnel under Mount Royal, decided to found a model town at the far end of it, on land then used to grow the Montreal melon. Work began in 1910, on plans by Frederick Gage Todd inspired by the City Beautiful and Garden City movements. The town was incorporated on December 21, 1912, and the tunnel carried its first passengers in 1918.

That overall design led to the Model City of Mount Royal being designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 2008. The town presents itself as the only community in Quebec to have developed entirely according to an urban plan inspired by the garden-city movement and built around a railway project. It has some thirty parks and more than 70 other green spaces, including Danyluk Park with its arena, Connaught Park with its country club, and Mohawk Park with its twelve tennis courts.

Vilamo, a neighbourhood planned ahead

In Sainte-Julie, Vilamo follows a similar logic, in another era and on another scale. The Town of Sainte-Julie describes it as an integrated 33.5-hectare project laid out around the Club de golf La Vallée-du-Richelieu, near exit 105 of Highway 20, expected to include about 400 to 500 units and to devote 15% of its area to community and recreational space. The neighbourhood's website adds 600,000 sq ft of green space, a promenade for pedestrians, bikes and electric transportation, and dense landscaping that preserves privacy.

Six builders are putting up single-family homes, semi-detached homes, townhouses and condos there. BÉAcité occupies one corner: 50 lots on Geoffrion and Bissonnette streets, with two parks and a retention pond on the site plan. Architectural standards guide how the neighbourhood looks, much as the PIIA does in Mount Royal. Vilamo isn't a garden city and doesn't have a century of history; what it shares with TMR is the idea of a whole community designed before it was built.

Living in Sainte-Julie or Mount Royal: space and density

The most visible gap is space. The Town of Mount Royal covers 7.43 km², according to the town, and had 2,776.7 residents per km² in 2021; Sainte-Julie covers 48.49 km², at 619.6 residents per km². Housing reflects the difference:

detached, semi-detached or row houses: 52.7% of dwellings in Mount Royal, 73.6% in Sainte-Julie;
apartments in buildings of five storeys or more: 13.8% in Mount Royal, practically none in Sainte-Julie;
average number of rooms per dwelling: 6.5 in Mount Royal, 7.1 in Sainte-Julie;
households that own their home: 65.0% in Mount Royal, 79.8% in Sainte-Julie.

Semi-detached homes, for their part, are more common in Mount Royal (17.5% of dwellings) than in Sainte-Julie (5.8%): BÉAcité's format will feel familiar, in a roomier setting.

Getting around: from the REM to the car

In Mount Royal, the two REM stations, Canora and Ville-de-Mont-Royal, link the town to downtown Montreal in under ten minutes, according to the town, and eleven STM bus routes pass through. In 2021, 72.8% of TMR commuters travelled by car, 15.4% by public transit, 6.7% on foot and 2.7% by bike.

In Sainte-Julie, the car clearly dominates: 90.2% of commuters, against 3.8% on public transit. In return, local transit there is free for everyone, every home in Vilamo is less than 300 m from a bus stop, and the walking and cycling network runs to more than 40 km. A BIXI station opened at Parc Arthur-Gauthier on October 5, 2026, and a park-and-ride lot is about 7 minutes from the neighbourhood.

Families and generations

Mount Royal is a town of families: in 2021, 39.5% of its households were couples with children, compared with 33.3% in Sainte-Julie, and children aged 14 and under made up 20.3% of the population, compared with 17.3%. The average family size reached 3.2 people (2.9 in Sainte-Julie). The median age, meanwhile, was a little lower in Mount Royal (42.0) than in Sainte-Julie (44.4).

In a larger family, space quickly becomes an issue, especially when a parent works from home. Our article on the house with a home office near Mount Royal looks at the options: a mezzanine, the basement, a room with a door.

What language is spoken in everyday life?

This is the gap worth naming plainly, and for many families, living in Sainte-Julie or Mount Royal comes down to it. According to the census, French was the language spoken most often at home for 43.2% of Mount Royal residents, English for 27.6% and a non-official language for 19.9%. In Sainte-Julie, French came first for 94.2% of the population. The Town of Mount Royal notes that French and English are both spoken fluently there; Sainte-Julie, for its part, is a predominantly French-speaking community.

According to its 2025-2026 school zones, the Riverside School Board serves Sainte-Julie at both the elementary and secondary levels, with Heritage Regional High School. Eligibility for English-language instruction and available spaces should be checked directly with the board.

What stays within reach

Living in Vilamo also means having a full commercial strip within walking distance: medical services, a public market, restaurants, a pharmacy and a Caisse Desjardins. According to beacite.com, a three-year membership at Espace Tonik Nature is offered free of charge. Mont-Saint-Bruno National Park, next door to Sainte-Julie, and its ski centre are minutes away, as are the Promenades St-Bruno, Quartier DIX30 and IKEA. If new construction appeals to you, our article on the turnkey new home near Mount Royal compares an existing house and a move-in-ready one in detail.

Conclusion

Living in Sainte-Julie or Mount Royal means choosing between two planned communities: one, a century-old garden city in the heart of the island, dense, where French and English sit side by side, served by the REM; the other, a recent South Shore neighbourhood, roomier and French-speaking, where the car matters more and local buses are free. Neither is better in absolute terms: it all depends on what you expect from daily life. To get a feel for it, a visit to the sales office at 435 Geoffrion Street will tell you more than the figures can.

Living in Sainte-Julie or Mount Royal: two planned neighbourhoods