The City of Windsor is moving to crack down on property standards in the downtown core.
The city has announced the hiring of a dedicated by-law property standards enforcement lead for the downtown core and the surrounding area.
The new position will be filled by Nicole Brush, who has worked at the city since 2015, including seven years as a by-law officer.
The position was identified as part of the city's $3.2 million Strengthen the Core: Downtown Windsor Revitalization Plan to address safety and security and to improve cleanliness and improvements.
Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens says this new position will be doing proactive enforcement on some of the building by-law standards in key areas of the core to make sure people are following the rules.
"The difference here with the work that Nicole will be doing is that for the rest of the city, people will sometimes e-mail, call, and complain and say, 'I can't believe I got a by-law notice or an infraction. Don't you guys have anything better to do?' The reality is that almost all of our by-law enforcement work is complaint-driven," he says.
According to the city, if a building or property is deemed to be non-compliant with city by-laws, owners will be given a reasonable timeline to bring their property into compliance.
In cases where an order to repair must be issued, owners will have 30 days to comply, and efforts will be closely monitored, with escalation to the Provincial Offences Court if necessary to enforce any orders.
Dilkens says there is a provision in the by-laws that only allows buildings to be boarded up for a certain period of time, unless there's been a fire and there's an insurance claim.
"If it's just someone who says, 'You know what? I'm not really interested in renting this right now. I'm just going to sit on the real estate. I live in Toronto. I'm going to sit on the real estate and let it appreciate. I don't want the hassles of being a landlord.' But the insurance company says, 'Well, you have to board the windows.' So they board the windows, but they're undertaking no work to activate the building; well, we have by-laws that speak to that," he says.
According to the city, the building department receives an average of over 3,000 service requests per year. In 2023, 120 of those involved the Downtown Windsor Business Improvement Area (BIA). Specific to the city's BIAs, Ward 3 and the downtown account for 17% of all building-related service requests.
The city currently employs eight regular full-time by-law officers, including this new role, and two temporary part-time by-law officers, specifically designated for the Residential Rental By-Law pilot project.
