The Town of Tecumseh is investing millions of dollars in infrastructure savings to put towards two new stormwater management ponds.
$5.2 million is being put towards the project.
The town says the ponds will help reduce flooding in and around the Manning Road Secondary Planning Area and facilitate construction of 6,000 new homes.
Mayor Gary McNamara says the funding is ‘huge’ for the municipality.
“This $5.24 million that’s being given will go a long way for us to prepare those lands now that we’ve got, I call it, the trilogy, which is the water, the wastewater, and now stormwater retention,” says McNamara. “It’s wide open now working with the development community to build homes.
He says the town is hoping to see more residential growth in that area.
“The potential in that area, the front end of it, I believe, is around 1400 or 1500 homes, and it’s kind of the phase one of the project,” says McNamara. “So if we look at the full build out of that area, we’re talking over 4,000 homes.”
McNamara says the beauty of the whole development is the diversity of the type of housing in the area.
“It’s not just your single family home. It will be multi-res and higher density in certain areas and also supported by commercial development for those folks,” says McNamara.
The province awarded the town $15.1 million in 2024 through the Municipal Housing Infrastructure Program’s Housing-Enabling Water Systems Fund.
The funding was used to support the Tecumseh Hamlet & Manning Road Secondary Plan Area project.
The project assisted the town with reducing flooding risk in the area.
The town says the project was recently completed and came in under budget by roughly $5.2 million.
The town and province then agreed to reallocate the cost savings towards the construction of two new stormwater management ponds.