Land for sale in Laurentides, Quebec

About Laurentides

The area

The Laurentides is the administrative region directly north of Montréal, between the Outaouais to the west and Lanaudière to the east, reaching south to the Rivière des Mille Îles. It covers about 20,500 km² and had about 636,000 people in 2021 across 76 municipalities, grouped into seven MRCs plus the city of Mirabel. The south has fertile farm plains and the largest cities: Saint-Jérôme, Mirabel, Blainville, Saint-Eustache and Boisbriand. To the north the land rises into forested mountains and lakes; the MRC d'Antoine-Labelle alone covers about 16,300 km² of the upper region, and the MRC des Laurentides takes in Mont-Tremblant and Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts.

History

The Kanien'kehá:ka (Mohawk) community of Kanesatake is in the MRC de Deux-Montagnes. From 1868, Curé Antoine Labelle pushed settlement of the northern valleys and the railway from Saint-Jérôme that served them, which reached Mont-Laurier in 1909. In the Pays-d'en-Haut, poor soils disappointed early farmers, and after a forestry slump in the 1920s the area turned to skiing and tourism. The last passenger train ran in 1981; the line became the P'tit Train du Nord linear park in 1996.

Services and access

Santé Québec lists hospitals in Saint-Jérôme, Saint-Eustache and Mont-Laurier, plus multiservice health centres in Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts, Lachute and Rivière-Rouge. Autoroute 15 is the main route north, passing Boisbriand, Saint-Jérôme and Sainte-Adèle, and Route 117 serves Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts, Labelle, Rivière-Rouge and Mont-Laurier. Autoroute 50 runs through Mirabel. The nearest scheduled flights leave Montréal-Trudeau. Manufacturing, led by aerospace and other transport equipment, is the main industry, and construction employs an unusually large share of workers because of fast population growth.

Land and climate

About 10% of the region is in the provincial agricultural zone, with about 1,200 farms; vegetables, dairy, grain and ornamental horticulture lead. The southern plains suit field crops and orchards, while the upper Laurentides is mountainous and forested.

Before you buy

Building permits and zoning come from the local municipality; Mont-Tremblant, for example, issues permits for houses, wells, septic systems and work on the shoreline strip, which is 10 to 15 m wide there (20 m on some lakes). Each MRC's land use plan (schéma d'aménagement) sets rules the local bylaws must follow. Land in the agricultural zone falls under the Commission de protection du territoire agricole du Québec (CPTAQ): a house or other non-farm use there can need its authorization, and its Déméter map shows past decisions. The province is publishing new flood-zone maps with four hazard levels; check the interactive map for any lot near water.

Sources

• Gouvernement du Québec, Laurentides (région 15)
• Conseil des préfets et des élus des Laurentides
• Statistics Canada, 2021 Census population and dwelling counts (table 98-10-0007)
• Santé Québec Laurentides, hospitals
• MRC d'Antoine-Labelle, the P'tit Train du Nord
• MRC des Pays-d'en-Haut, history
• CPTAQ
• Gouvernement du Québec, flood-zone maps in force

Written by AcreScout from the sources listed; facts checked September 30, 2026. Rules change: confirm anything that matters with the municipality.