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The Municipality of Lakeshore and the University of Windsor are working to create a partnership aimed at improving planning and speeding up the approval process for new housing in the municipality.
Lakeshore council has directed administration to report back on a memo of understanding for approval of the partnership.
The Housing Production Systems Approach agreement would see the municipality work directly with the university’s Centres For Cities at Windsor Law.
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“This initiative will make it easier for builders to build by cutting red tape while ensuring our communities develop in ways that reflect what our residents want,” said Lakeshore mayor Tracey Bailey.
“We are lucky to have an incredible local asset in the Centre of Cities and I look forward to seeing this partnership develop so Lakeshore can lead the way in improved planning processes throughout the region, as well as how we can work with the university to improve how we serve our residents.”
The aim of the proposed partnership is to take a community-centric approach that would see residents engaged in a bottom-up process to determine how Lakeshore’s housing sector develops. Feedback from residents will be incorporated into Lakeshore’s Official Plan and Zoning By-law if council approves the partnership.
The memorandum of understanding would be the first of its kind in the region.
“This area is seeing record growth and Lakeshore is truly in a unique position to add more housing at a faster pace,” said Centre for Cities director Anneke Smit, a University of Windsor associate professor.
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“But what’s great about this approach is that it’s not just about getting housing built faster, it’s about building up their communities in a way that’s better for the environment, economically sustainable, affordable, while not touching farmland.”
The Centre for Cities and its Housing Systems and Innovation Lab is organized around a singular systems approach to efficient and appropriate housing creation.
The model empowers municipalities to act as developers, returns planning power to municipal hands, and facilitates the construction of more suitable housing in form and scale at a pace aligned with the housing needs in the region.
The Ontario government has set a target of building 13,000 homes over the next decade for the Windsor area.
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