City Issues a Record Number of Building Permits Makes Progress Towards Housing Targets

The City of Windsor continues making progress towards achieving its ambitious targets to increase the housing stock in the city, making Windsor eligible for more money from Ontario’s Building Faster Fund.

The Building Faster Fund is a three-year, $1.2 billion province-wide program designed to support community efforts to increase the number of homes in Ontario. The Province calculated their targets based on the number of housing starts in each community, which are residential development sites that have started construction. The target assigned to Windsor in 2023 was 953 units.

In 2023, the City of Windsor issued building permits resulting in 1,154 residential housing units. These permits will result in housing starts that bring us closer to meeting, and likely exceeding, the City of Windsor’s targets. There will be no resting on successes, as the 2024 target for housing starts rises to 1,083 units. The target will grow again to 1,300 new starts in 2025.

Despite some varying tracking mechanisms across upper levels of government with the definition of “housing starts” versus “housing units,” Windsor has very clearly exceeded its housing target by 21% or 201 units in 2023.

As requested by the Province of Ontario, City Council recently adopted a Housing Pledge to reach a goal of adding 13,000 housing units over 10 years.

Quotes:

“The City has made tremendous progress to date with housing solutions made for Windsor. Working with upper levels of government and key partners, we are helping to move the needle on the national housing crisis at the local level. Council remains committed to increasing the supply of housing at an accelerated pace, while respecting taxpayers and their investments, neighbourhoods and infrastructure, and quality of life for Windsorites. The record number of building permits issued last year reflects our commitment to meeting the needs of our evolving community with innovative solutions and solid partnerships.”
- Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens

“The City of Windsor continues to pursue additional housing stock in the community. Recent efforts to secure funding through the federal and provincial governments have highlighted the need to ensure consistent and accurate reporting of housing data. The City is working closely with the Province and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation to address discrepancies and ensure comparable and accurate statistics in the future.”
- Jelena Payne, Commissioner of Economic Development, City of Windsor

“The City of Windsor’s development services departments are undertaking continuous improvements to assist our business community to complete construction on permitted units. We couldn’t achieve these results without our private sector partners.”
- John Revell, Chief Building Official, City of Windsor