windsor on track to hit 2024 ontario housing target, secure $3m grant — mayor
windsor will likely receive a multimillion-dollar boost...
sep 6 2024
3 minute read
local developer rob piroli, left, and windsor mayor drew dilkens shake hands at a press conference on friday, sept. 6, 2024 at city hall.
dan janisse
/
windsor star
windsor will likely receive a multimillion-dollar boost from the province for surpassing its housing target this year, the city’s mayor says.
drew dilkens on friday announced windsor had initiated 924 housing “starts” — foundations poured for residential units — as of mid-august. that represents 85 per cent of its provincial target (1,088) for 2024 and makes the city eligible for more than $3 million in funding from ontario’s building faster fund.
“we feel the pressure,” dilkens said during a news conference at city hall. “we’re doing a great job moving (development) applications through the process.
“that, ultimately, is the role that the city needs to play — making sure that as applications come in, we have the staff, we have the resources, and the talent to make sure we’re reviewing things for safety, and making sure they’re meeting all of the planning and the zoning bylaws.”
at the start of 2023, ontario tasked windsor and essex county with building 30,400 new homes by 2031, with the city’s portion set at 13,000 new residential units.
there was some confusion around the number of housing starts in windsor last year, but dilkens said the issue of counting housing starts had been addressed. earlier this year, the canada mortgage and housing corporation, a crown corporation, asserted that windsor had only 346 housing starts in 2023. as a result, the city missed out on $3.4 million from ontario’s building faster fund in february.
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the number of housing starts recorded by cmhc excluded student housing and long-term care home development, dilkens said, two types of housing builds the province will count towards windsor’s building faster fund numbers this year.
ward 10 coun. jim morrison, who chairs windsor’s development committee, said the committee approved rezoning applications involving more than 3,200 housing units last year.
“we are moving as fast as we can at city hall,” morrison said.
“i’m also really happy to see the mix that we’re building right now. we need apartments because we can build them fast, they’re sustainable, and they’re efficient.
“windsor is kind of known for single-family dwellings — younger people can’t afford single-family houses right now. elderly people are looking for apartment-style living where they don’t have to do maintenance.”
rob piroli, president of piroli group developments, praised windsor for streamlining the development process at city hall. since 2019, he said, his company has built around 600 residential units in the region, including a 136-unit apartment at forest glade drive and lauzon road scheduled to open in the fall of 2025.
“the city has really grasped what the provincial mission is, wiping out red tape with issuing permits or rezoning,” piroli said.
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as of august 14, the city had approved 1,377 residential units through zoning bylaw amendment applications and 570 units through site plan control applications. another 581 units approved through planning are ready for building permits.
“we’ve had about 1,000 people every month for the last six months move here, and there’s no sign that this is slowing — those people need to live somewhere,” dilkens said.
windsor’s application for roughly $30 million from ottawa’s housing accelerator fund was denied in january after city council refused to permit four units on every residential lot as-of-right. such an approval would have meant a property owner could build a fourplex, or add three units to a property with a single-family home, without a public hearing or a council vote. the mayor and a majority of council felt fourplexes would not be suitable on every lot.
in its submission for federal dollars, the city proposed allowing multi-unit builds of multi-storeys across almost 1,000 acres and nearly 50 km of arterial roads on bus routes, among other things. windsor’s application was deemed not ambitious enough by federal officials.
still unwilling to budge on zoning rules around fourplexes, windsor opted in july not to apply for the next round of federal grant funding, which opened this year.
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