Lorraine is the most “private driveway” town we serve. The 2021 census counts 9,502 residents and 3,437 private dwellings over 5.90 km², and above all: 88.2% of occupied dwellings are single-detached houses — 95.3% once semi-detached and row houses are added — with not a single duplex or five-storey building, and 97.6% of households own their home. More than half the stock (53.5%) dates from 1961 to 1980: these houses have reached the age of major renovations — kitchen, bathroom, roof, basement — and almost nothing gets built anymore, a 2014 municipal inventory having found only 7.57 hectares of vacant land. Zoning puts numbers on the driveway: at most 8.5 metres wide, a slope of at most 8% that may not begin within 1.5 metres of the street pavement, and surfacing limited to 40% of the front yard. A 20 yard box fits without trapping the car when the spot is chosen ahead; the 10 yard equals a 20 yard filled halfway — same footprint, simply lower. And in Lorraine that low profile has a particular value: local zoning speaks of visibility from the street (see the permit section).
The second thing our drivers know about Lorraine is that no wire hangs over its streets. A planned new town of 1960 — awarded in 1988 the first international Art de vivre prize ever given outside Europe — it buried all its public utilities: a roll-off truck raises its box here without watching the sky. The Lorraine obstacle is the branch: zoning requires only 4 metres of clearance above travelled lanes. Add 30 km/h across the whole territory, not a single traffic light and intersections all drawn as “T” shapes: delivery here is mechanically simple. What remains is street geometry: east of Boulevard De Gaulle, curvilinear layouts inherited from the 1960s and 1970s; west of it and along the Bois-des-Filion line, cul-de-sac courts — four of which the town is rebuilding this summer (Bouligny, Châtenois Sud, Gérardmer, Luxeuil) “afin d'améliorer le rayon de virage des camions de collecte” — to improve the turning radius of collection trucks. If you live on a cul-de-sac, say so when you book: we plan the turnaround before we arrive.
The third is the surface and its other occupants. Driveways here serve lots where zoning requires 40% maintained vegetation and at least one tree per 100 m²: the PROTEC-O-SOL system — built-in planks that spread the load — comes with every box, and our drivers suggest adding four flattened cardboard boxes or a thin sheet of plywood on the chosen spot. A very Lorraine detail: the wheeled bins live in the driveway, not at the curb — the town asks that they be placed there, wheels toward the house, with 60 cm of clearance on each side, failing which the collection may skip you. So the dumpster's spot is agreed at booking, so every bin keeps its own.
Statistics Canada, 2021 census profile (Lorraine, V); Town of Lorraine, URB-01 urban plan, zoning by-law URB-03 (s. 9.1.3, 11.1.7 and 11.1.9), “Sécurité routière” page, 2026 collection calendar and municipal notice of August 11, 2026 — consulted August 17, 2026.