The chair of the Downtown Windsor Business Improvement Association calls the approval of a multi-million dollar plan to improve the city core 'the change that we need for downtown.'
Chris MacLeod says he thinks they will start to see some impact immediately, but other elements will take time.
"I think the police presence—we've already seen that over the last couple of weeks, but I think it's going to take time," he says. "The ultimate solution, and we've been talking about this for a year and a half, is more people, more businesses, more businesses, more people. But now what you've done is give the business community more confidence that the city has their back.
City council voted unanimously during Monday's meeting in favour of an over $3.2 million plan aimed at revitalizing and improving safety in downtown Windsor.
The 'Strengthen the Core-Downtown Windsor Revitalization Plan will see over $1.3 million spent to add 12 more Windsor police officers to address drug use and disorderly conduct downtown while working with health and social services to deal with mental health issues facing members of the public.
MacLeod says those projects where you had developers who were on the fence about whether or not they would move their projects forward, now we can start to see that stuff happen.
"Those things are going to take time; it's going to take a year or two to see those long-term impacts of today's decision. But today is monumental," he says.
MacLeod says as a business owner, this allows him to move forward with confidence.
"It's been that kind of thing in the back of your mind. We have another property that we're looking to develop downtown. Although we've been kind of slowly moving it along, in the back of our minds it's like, 'What if council doesn't move this plan forward?' So now for us, we can put that behind us and do the business that we need to do," he says.
Another $1.4 million will be spent as part of the plan to cover expanded hours of operation and staffing at the Homelessness and Housing Help Hub (H4), ensuring people who are unhoused have a facility they can access prior to the opening of overnight emergency shelters.
The plan will also see a focus put on addressing blight, enforcing property standards, and encouraging economic development.