A maintenance-free home near Laval-sur-le-Lac, without giving up the greenery

A new semi-detached home near Laval-sur-le-Lac is chosen first for its rooms; in Laval-sur-le-Lac, though, it's sometimes the yard that gives people pause.

The neighbourhood owes a great deal to its large wooded properties, and that setting makes demands of its own. Here is what it asks of an owner, backed by City of Laval documents and the 2021 Census, followed by what a maintenance-free home near Laval-sur-le-Lac would let you leave behind, in Sainte-Julie.

A country-retreat setting, planned back in the 1930s

Laval-sur-le-Lac was conceived as a green place. According to the typo-morphological study the City of Laval published in 2020, councillors of the former town of Laval-sur-le-Lac adopted rules in the 1930s meant to preserve its peace and its landscapes: lots at least 100 feet wide and houses set back at least 40 feet from the road. Those rules belong to history, but the landscape they shaped is still there.

The same study describes lots that are generally larger than those normally found in Laval; along the shore, some run 135 to 165 m deep. The vegetation is dominated by mature trees, tall hedges and the homes' deep front yards, and the lack of sidewalks and curbs adds to the cottage-country feel. The rivers and the lake, meanwhile, often stay hidden behind all that greenery.

What does this setting ask of you, season after season?

A lot like that doesn't look after itself. Depending on the property, it can mean tall hedges to trim, mature trees to watch and prune, a deep front lawn to mow, leaves to rake in the fall or a long driveway to clear in winter. The list varies, but it comes back every year, whether you do the work yourself or hire contractors.

Trees, in particular, carry real weight in the neighbourhood's rules. Under the City of Laval's urban planning code, 293 of the 311 mapped buildings in the neighbourhood sit in zones covered by the site-planning and architectural-integration program (PIIA) for buildings of interest. When a construction or expansion project is reviewed there, one criterion is unambiguous: the preservation of wooded areas and of mature or noteworthy trees is to be maximized. The landscape benefits; the owner, for their part, takes on a lasting responsibility.

Big houses for smaller households

Homes in the neighbourhood are spacious. In the 2021 Census, in the census tract matching the neighbourhood, dwellings average 8.4 rooms; 56.8% have eight or more, and 37.8% have at least four bedrooms. Households, on the other hand, are often small: 47.1% are made up of two people and 42.3% are couples without children.

The population is also older than elsewhere. The median age is 54.0, compared with 42.8 for the City of Laval as a whole and 44.4 in Sainte-Julie; 27.8% of residents are 65 or older, and in 70.3% of households the primary maintainer is 55 or older. These figures describe an area, not your own situation. But if, in your home too, several rooms are now used mainly for guests and the yard takes up your weekends, the question is worth asking.

A maintenance-free home near Laval-sur-le-Lac: what changes with BÉAcité

At BÉAcité, the lot is delivered finished: grading and complete landscaping are part of the standard features. Once you have the keys, an all-inclusive maintenance program handles what comes next, and the upkeep is handled in full. It's the project's signature: no other Maisons Pépin development of semi-detached single-family homes offers such a program.

The full details of the program come from the sales director. Try the exercise with your own property: list what you do on it over the year, then check off, line by line, what the program provides and what would still be up to you. That way you'll know exactly how much time you stand to gain.

Another plus of buying new: nothing has been used yet. The central forced-air gas heating, the central air conditioning, the large windows in every room and the garage and its electric-vehicle outlet all arrive new. And like any new home sold by a builder in Quebec, it must be covered by the mandatory guarantee plan for new residential buildings; the sales director can walk you through that protection.

Everything on one floor, or nearly

A maintenance-free home near Laval-sur-le-Lac can also be a single-level home. BÉAcité's semi-detached bungalow has 1,006 sq ft at ground level, an equally large basement and a 294 sq ft garage, 2,306 sq ft in all: daily life happens without stairs to climb. The two-storey Duo cottage, for its part, offers 2,018 sq ft of living space.

Among the turnkey homes, photos of 435 Geoffrion Street show a glass-walled residential elevator serving the upper floor. It's an example of what a home can accommodate; ask the sales director what's possible in the one you're interested in.

Keeping the greenery, differently

Leaving a wooded lot doesn't mean living far from trees. Vilamo was planned with dense plantings designed for privacy, and its green space covers 600,000 sq ft, over 15% of its area. BÉAcité's site plan includes two parks and a retention pond, and a promenade for pedestrians, cyclists and electrified transport runs through Vilamo. At home, you keep a private garden and a garden-level backyard; several lots even have no neighbours behind.

A little farther on, Espace Tonik Nature describes itself as an extension of home into nature (beacite.com mentions three years of free membership), and Mont-Saint-Bruno National Park is a few minutes away. If the condition of your current house also weighs on your decision, our article on whether to renovate in Laval-sur-le-Lac or buy new compares the two approaches. As for the drive, it's laid out step by step in our article on getting from Laval-sur-le-Lac to Sainte-Julie.

Conclusion

Laval-sur-le-Lac's charm lies in its greenery, and that greenery costs time: hedges, mature trees and deep yards come back every season. In Sainte-Julie, a maintenance-free home near Laval-sur-le-Lac turns things around: you enjoy a landscaped garden and a well-planted neighbourhood without having to maintain them yourself. Before you decide, read the program document, then stop by the sales office at 435 Geoffrion Street: it welcomes visitors Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., and by appointment in the evening and on weekends.