The Town of Essex is holding a meeting for a chance to meet local developers.
The purpose of the Developer Open House is to meet and speak with developers who are currently developing in the Town, or plan to develop, and get an overview of successes and challenges of building in Essex.
Essex mayor Sherry Bondy and deputy mayor Rob Shepley will be hosting the event on February 8.
Bondy says she wants to take this opportunity to hear from the development community to see what can be improved within the Town.
This will be an informal session, where everyone can speak to one another and get ideas out in the open.
She says she understands there are hurdles.
"We notice that it's not easy to develop right now, that the residential market has slowed down a bit, there's changes to the Conservation Authorities Act, changes to stipulations and requirements on behalf of the Town. You know, what can we do to meet these developers halfway?"
Bondy says she wants to see common themes, successes, and hurdles between developers.
"Perhaps take that back to our administration, look out and see if there's best practices with other municipalities, and really start that dialogue and see how we can work together to move Essex forward."
She says developers do compete with one another, but they have similarities as well.
"We have similarities in terms of the market has slowed down right now. Maybe one of the items that comes out is we look at reducing lot width, maybe we start pivoting to smaller lot sizes, or approving more secondary dwelling units, or approving higher buildings."
There will be two Open Houses on February 8, one from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m., and another from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.
The meeting will take place at Brenko's House of Pizza, located at 19 Laird Avenue in Essex.
All are welcome to attend.
-with files from AM800's Rob Hindi