Windsor failed to meet 2023 housing target, missing out on provincial cash

Windsor has missed out on its share of a $400-million provincial housing fund after failing to meet last year's housing target set by the Ontario government. 

Hitting the target of 953 housing starts in 2023 would have brought in $3.4 million to the city.

But on Thursday a spokesperson for housing minister Paul Calandra confirmed the city did not meet its target and won't be eligible for funding. 

Ontario's housing tracker shows the city fell well short, hitting just 36 per cent of its goal.

That tracker uses housing starts, which are tracked by the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation.

However, city officials believe those numbers don't accurately reflect what is happening in the city and will now manually count housing starts.

"Semantics here are really, really important when we talk about these files," the city's commissioner of economic development Jelena Payne said during a recent city council meeting.

Payne has highlighted Windsor's record number of housing permits issued last year, for 1,154 units.

The city says those are the numbers Ontario should be tracking — if so, the city would have exceeded its target by 21 per cent — but the minister said that will not change. 

"Look, the fund was originally and is continuously focused on the shovels in the ground," he said when asked Thursday by the Globe and Mail why housing starts are being used as the metric instead of permits. 

CBC News asked for an interview with city administration and Windsor's Mayor Drew Dilkens following Calandra's comments. 

A spokesperson for the city sent a statement that said, in part, that the staff is committed to ensuring that "accurate data is being utilized for the Building Faster Fund."

Windsor will be able to apply for a portion of whatever is left over from the annual fund after politicians hand out money to municipalities that hit 80 per cent or more of their targets. 

Toronto is getting $114 million for exceeding its target, with announcements planned in Brampton  and Chatham-Kent on Friday. 

Ontario's tracker shows that Chatham-Kent has outperformed every other municipality by tallying 522 housing starts.

That's 644 per cent of its 2023 goal and nearly half of its 10-year pledge, which according to the formula will bring in more than a million dollars to the municipality. 

Windsor's 36 per cent is one of the lowest percentages of the 50 municipalities that made a housing pledge in Ontario. 

This comes after the federal government denied the city's application to the Housing Accelerator Fund last month because council voted against allowing four units houses to be built on any residential lot in Windsor. 

That application, if approved, could have brought in up to $70-million depending on how many houses were built over the life of the agreement.

Federal housing minister Sean Fraser said at the time that the money will be given to city's that are "only the most ambitious."

Ontario's housing minister said on Thursday the Building Faster Fund is to recognize cities that are getting shovels in the ground. 

"So this isn't a punishment for those cities that haven't been able to do that. It's a recognition of those that are doing it and helping them so that they can continue to do that and put more shovels in the ground."