LaSalle is getting $22.4 million from the province for its Howard Bouffard Stormwater Infrastructure project.
Essex MPP Anthony Leardi along with Minister of Infrastructure Kinga Surma made the announcement Tuesday morning at the LaSalle Civic Centre.
They were joined by LaSalle council members, town staff, local builders and residents.
Mayor Crystal Meloche says it's the largest grant the town has ever received.
Meloche says it's very exciting news for LaSalle.
"This is really important to the future of our municipality," says Meloche. "We've been talking for years and years about the Howard-Bouffard plan and that's really the next area of growth for our municipality and this opens that up for us."
She says the $22.4 million is a very big investment for the town.
"It's the largest grant we've received in our history as the Town of LaSalle and so this is really important to us," says Meloche. "This is not just for future residents because I don't want to focus too much on just our future residents coming to the town, this is actually also going to help our residents we are currently here with flood mitigation as well."
Meloche says the Howard Bouffard project will not only include housing but will also include schools and commercial developments.
She describes the Howard Bouffard project as a 'complete community'.
"It's infrastructure, it's water, it's drainage, it's everything," she says. "So it can kind of be put where it's needed to get us moving ahead. So I would say that you'll probably see used a lot for drainage in the beginning because that's our biggest hurdle right now. We've been working with the city as well as Tecumseh, as well as the province because of flooding that we're getting from their areas and so this will help take care of that stuff as well."
Meloche says the Howard Bouffard project is a 20-year plan but the community could see shovels in the ground for housing within the next three to five years.
The province says the investment will help build roughly 10,000 homes in LaSalle.
The funding is from the province's Housing-Enabling Water Systems Fund.
The fund is a stream of the Municipal Housing Infrastructure Program.
Amherstburg and Kingsville also received funding from the fund.