A Windsor councillor is excited about a new project to build residential inventory in his ward.
Rino Bortolin says he's impressed with the plan proposed for 371 Wyandotte St. W. near Church St. and is hoping other similar buildings follow suit.
Council has approved a site plan to transform the commercial building from one to three storeys adding two additional floors for residential space.
Bortolin says this is the perfect way to bring more residents downtown.
"Our community improvement plan has been trying to encourage and incentivize people to build more residential units. We want more people living downtown. This is one of the new ones, rare ones that they already have a building, but they just want to build up from it."
He says it's all about building up and not out avoiding urban sprawl.
"They're units right along Wyandotte Street., right along our major arteries. That's importantn because that's where you want to see a lot of the investment as far as transit investments, they'l be encouraging re-development in more people in an area that can use more density. So there's a lot of big wins to this."
Bortolin says the project will likely take advantage of the city's downtown community improvement plan.
"They'll get to experience five years or even 10 years at the current tax rate even though they'll be tripling the size of their building. It's great for them to lure in new tenants. They can pass along some of those savings to new tenants in that area when we're in the middle of, really, what's becoming a housing crisis here in Windsor."
The project is expected to add around 10 residential units to the downtown core.
The building currently has two units which are both occupied by businesses.
— with files from AM800's Gord Bacon