The population decree published on December 24, 2025 credits Saint-Eustache with 47,448 residents, spread over 70.61 km² of which 70% is green zone. The building stock has age on it: in the portrait drawn up in 2003 by the urban plan, the city counted 16,149 dwellings, 62.1% of them single detached houses; 63% of homes predated 1981 — 44.1% predated 1971 in Vieux Saint-Eustache alone. The city even publishes its own bungalow renovation guide. Roof, basement, windows, landscaping: those are 10 and 20-yard jobs.
Two details govern the placement. Highway 640 “divise le territoire en deux grands secteurs : le Nord et le Sud” — splits the territory into two large sectors, North and South — and the road links between them stay limited: a job site in Les Jardins de Saint-Eustache and one south of the quarry do not get delivered the same way. And the driveway access of a single-family home cannot exceed 8.0 metres in width: room for a 20-yard, about the size of a Dodge Caravan, or for the car beside it, rarely both in comfort.
Then there is the identity core, and it fits into a few streets. The church of Saint-Eustache has been a classified heritage immovable since June 30, 1970; rebuilt in 1841-1842 after the bombardment, it “porte toujours sur sa façade les marques laissées par les boulets” — still carries the cannonball marks on its façade — and it was designated a national historic site of Canada on September 30, 2014 for its part in the battle of December 14, 1837, which partly destroyed the village. Around it, Vieux-Saint-Eustache lines up 15 heritage buildings, 13 events and more than 150,000 festival-goers a year. For a job site that means tight lots, high density, rue Saint-Eustache and rue Saint-Louis listed among the streets closed to trucks, and a file that goes before the planning committee.
City of Saint-Eustache (“Portrait” and “Vieux-Saint-Eustache” pages), by-laws 1674 (urban plan, s. 3.1 and 4.9.2) and 1675 (zoning, s. 5.6.3.5), Répertoire du patrimoine culturel du Québec and Parks Canada — re-read August 16, 2026.