'It's the worst of Windsor': Bridge company ready to tear down Indian Road homes

Valerie Cross calls Indian Road the 'worst of Windsor.'

The west-end resident has watched homes in the neighbourhood decay for decades, and even now, as heavy machinery rolled up and work crews with the Canadian Transit Company began preparing the dilapidated homes for demolition, she's skeptical anything will be done to improve the area she lives in.

"I'll believe it when I see it," she said Tuesday.

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The City of Windsor has received requests for demolition permits from the company to tear down 33 vacant homes in the Indian Road area — the first part of three proposed phases of demolition in that area.

Demolition can begin as soon as the paperwork clears.

"We can't stop them," said Mayor Drew Dilkens following the council meeting Monday. "The federal government has told the Ambassador Bridge that they must take those homes down and so they're complying with the order of the federal government."

Cross blames both the bridge company and city council for keeping the homes standing long after she feels they should have been torn down.

"They're nothing but a health hazard, a neighbourhood hazard," she said. "I'd rather see them come down and the neighbourhood look a little more decent than it does now, because these places are broken down, decrepit."