Windsor gets $5.2 million from province for meeting housing targets

CBC

20 hours ago

Windsor is getting $5.2 million from the Ontario government for meeting, and blowing past, its 2024 housing targets under the province's Building Faster Fund.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford joined Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens to make the announcement Tuesday at Windsor City Hall.
The city broke ground on 2,306 new homes in 2024, the province said in a news release issued Tuesday; that's 213 per cent of its target for the year.
"I'm delighted to announce that … the City of Windsor has done an incredible job," Ford said. "Matter of fact, I have to tell you, I've never seen anyone achieving 213 per cent. So you're the Ontario champs."
The Municipality of Chatham-Kent achieved 644 per cent of its 2023 goal and nearly half of its 10-year pledge that year.
Windsor missed its target in 2023, but it also didn't report all of its housing starts to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation because of an error.
Different methods of counting housing starts
Those missed starts were added to the 2024 total, helping Windsor far exceed this year's target.
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation data lists 2,157 housing starts in Windsor in 2024, about 150 fewer than the province's number. But the provincial numbers include additional builds, such as long-term care beds and student housing.
Asked by reporters Tuesday about the appropriateness of including those units when they aren't providing homes for families looking for housing, Ford defended the move.
"A lot of these people are leaving their homes, leaving their condos, opening it up," he said.
The province's two-year-old Building Faster Fund is a three-year, $1.2 billion program that is designed to encourage municipalities to speed up municipal approval processes and get more homes built faster, the province said.
Municipalities that achieve 80 per cent or more of their targets are rewarded with funding for infrastructure such as roads, bridges and culverts to support new home construction.
"Windsor has been identified as one of the most important and fastest growing communities to watch in Ontario and in all of Canada," Dilkens said.
"Much of that unprecedented growth and development is closely linked to the vital support that we continue to receive from Premier Ford and the provincial government."
Ford spoke to reporters after the funding announcement about a range of issues affecting the Windsor-Essex area, including concerns about the impact of U.S. tariffs on the local economy and the auto sector.
Ford addresses tariffs, local economy
The premier will meet with Prime Minister Mark Carney on Monday, he said, and plans to push for lower corporate tax rates and a two-year pause on HST on new home sales.
He also expressed his desire to see the Bank of Canada lower interest rates.
Asked by CBC about last month's Canadian Federation of Independent Business report that found that tariff relief programs launched by Ontario weren't working for small or medium-sized businesses, Ford said his government plans to announce more funding starting Wednesday.
"We're rolling out the money, and I won't hesitate to keep rolling it out because I know we're going to get through this and we're going to come out stronger than ever before," he said.