For years and years, Windsor’s planners and policy makers had to focus their attention on negotiating blight, population loss, the hollowing out of the city’s urban core and emptying neighbourhoods.
That’s all changed. Even in the midst of the worst global pandemic in a century, Windsor’s housing prices were skyrocketing and new construction start announcements continued at a brisk pace.
With the end of the COVID-19 nightmare barely in sight, the City of Windsor is already experiencing unprecedented growth. It should be good news, but other challenges are now emerging — including a looming housing affordability crisis — and some are calling for a fundamental reevaluation of the pathway forward.
“Housing is a critical component, but it’s not just housing pressure, it’s how you want the city to grow,” said Ward 3 Coun. Rino Bortolin, who represents the downtown.
I’m scared about the widening gap between rich and poor
The real turnaround in Windsor’s fortunes began in the middle of the last decade, when Alberta’s massive oil sands projects took a major global hit and many of this city’s economic expats began returning home. Windsor also opened its arms at the time to a sizeable number of refugees fleeing the civil war in Syria, with an estimated 2,000 members of that community eventually finding their way here.
But the real change came when the University of Windsor and St. Clair College began heavily recruiting for new students from abroad, with thousands heeding the call. Part of the attraction were federal programs offered by the Harper and Trudeau governments that permitted foreign students to remain in Canada after graduation to work and, better yet, to create new jobs.
“Since 2015 it’s, ‘Wow, now we’re growing very quickly. How do we manage this growth?'” said Mike Moffatt, an economist who has been keeping tabs on Windsor’s turnaround. He said the exodus of families from the Greater Toronto Area due to exploding housing prices there has had an impact on cities as far away as London but has not been a significant factor in Windsor’s recent growth.
Moffatt, who teaches business at the University of Western Ontario in London and is a senior director at the Ottawa-based Smart Prosperity Institute, said having thousands of bright foreign students arrive in Windsor each year, and then seeing many of them decide to stay after graduation, is a big positive for the local economy.
“Having a lot of really young, really talented people wanting to start businesses — I think it’s a great thing,” he said.
“But you have to plan for that.”
For example, where do you house thousands of new students flooding into a mid-sized city each fall?
Moffatt, who works with London and other cities in addressing growth issues, is the featured speaker at an Aug. 4 event in downtown Windsor that will see a panel of local policy makers discuss housing policy. Bortolin will be joined by Lori Atkinson, regional manager at Libro Credit Union, Eric Hill, executive director of Can Am Urban Native Homes of Windsor, Ami Patel, chief financial officer of Windsor Essex Community Housing Corporation, and Hugo Vega, a YMCA regional manager of settlement services.
“The last five years, things have shot off like crazy — Windsor is becoming quite a different place,” said moderator Melinda Munro of event co-host Munro Strategic Perspective. “Mike has some unique insights,” she said of Moffatt.
Tickets are $25 each on the Eventbrite website and include a drink, snacks and a seat at one of the tables being set up on the patios of Maiden Lane Wine & Spirits and A Dog’s Breakfast. The discussion runs from 6 to 7 p.m.
Despite the rapidly rising cost of local homeownership, Bortolin said owning property remains attainable for most people living here with decent-paying jobs. “Windsor is still affordable, but it’s on track to not be.”
“Outside investment is good … but you don’t want to lose control of your community,” he said, adding his big concern is for young people and Windsorites who are being rapidly priced out of the market. “I’m scared about the widening gap between rich and poor.”
The flow of new residents seeking their way to Windsor — reversing decades of slow growth and even periods of population decline — is “not likely to stop,” said Moffatt, who doesn’t see the current local trend reversing itself anytime soon. Housing demand drove up prices, he said, and that activity attracted investors which is driving those prices up even further.
The answer, Moffatt said, is to “build, build, build” and increase supply. And that’s where new planning policy and regulations need to come in to direct the growth so it doesn’t mean gobbling up farms, forests and wetlands and forcing people into long commutes for work.
Urban intensification, which will likely trigger neighbourhood opposition, is one route to take, said Moffatt. “If you don’t, you’re probably looking at continued sprawl — we’re losing 175 acres of farmland a day in Ontario.”
The path forward is about “having the community come together, recognize the challenges and come up with creative solutions,” said Moffatt.
London’s city council, for example, unanimously approved establishment, during the worst of COVID-19 last year, of a London Community Recovery Network, made up of 35 representatives from government, neighbourhoods, industry, business, academia and social organizations. With timelines and a reporting deadline, the group will provide suggestions and answers in the fall to the question: “What does success look like coming out of the pandemic?”
- Doug Schmidt
