Windsor has surpassed its 2024 provincial housing targets

The City of Windsor has surpassed its 2024 provincial housing targets.

As of Sept. 13, the city has reached 108 percent, or 1,179 housing starts, according to the provincial housing tracker.

The figure surpasses the provincial target of 1,083 housing starts for 2024.

The figure also means the city will receive provincial funding through the Building Faster Fund, which rewards municipalities that meet or exceed 80 percent of their annual housing targets.

The city is now in line to receive $3 million to $3.5 million from the fund, although the figure will grow once any additional housing starts are calculated into the figure at the end of the year, resulting in additional funds being accessed from the fund.

During a news conference Friday at Windsor City Hall, Mayor Drew Dilkens said there are a thousand ways they can use the money.

"Our goal is to make sure we invest it in housing-enabling infrastructure," he said. "We have a lot of construction work and a lot of capital work that has to be done to help support the growth related to Sandwich South, growth related to economic development at the airport."

The city points to several measures that have played a part in helping meet the 2024 target, including a specialized development application coordinator team to serve as a single point of contact for customers throughout the development application process.

Dilkens said that has helped speed up the approval process for developers.

"If you file for a building permit or a development application, you have one point of contact. You're not having to chase down the right person in the planning department or in the building department," he said. "You have one point of contact who will do the inside work at city hall for you to help get you the answers you need because, ultimately, you don't really care who's working it out on the inside; you just want to make sure it gets out."

Windsor has now been able to reduce the planning application approval process to under six months, which officials say is the fastest planning approval rate in Ontario.

City officials say most municipalities in Windsor's size take one to two years to process a planning application approval.

The Housing Solutions Made for Windsor plan is also being cited as a reason for increased housing development, as the plan includes opening municipal lands ready for development, a vacant home tax to boost the availability of the current housing stock, and official plan amendments to focus intensification on key areas along major thoroughfares and transit routes.

To date, the total value of construction linked to residential permit issues is $301,126,117.

The city's overall target is to build 13,000 new homes by 2031.