A home on Kildare Rd. in Windsor, Ont.’s Walkerville neighbourhood, on Nov. 25.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
The federal and Ontario governments say Windsor hasn’t built enough homes, but the City of Windsor says the number of housing starts listed on a provincial tracker does not accurately reflect the status of its residential development.
As part of the provincial government’s goal to build 1.5 million homes by 2031, it has assigned annual targets to municipalities and is rewarding good performance. Its $1.2-billion Building Faster Fund, launched in 2023, provides an allocation to all municipalities who reach 80 per cent of their goal in any year, and a bonus for those who exceed it.
Funding will flow to municipalities over a three-year period, beginning in 2024-25, and can be used for infrastructure and other related costs.
According to the latest figures provided by the provincial tracker as of Jan. 19, three-quarters of the 50 municipalities with allocations did not meet their 2023 goal. The median of all municipalities’ progress toward their assigned goals was 54 per cent.
The 2023 goal set for Windsor by the province was 953 housing starts, but in its online tracker, the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing says the city completed just 346 starts, or 36 per cent of its assigned target.
However, the city believes the province’s most recent figures are not up to date, and that the number of building permits it issued last year is a better reflection of actual development in the city.
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The discrepancies could stand in the way of the city receiving millions in funding for new houses and underscores an often overlooked factor key to solving Canada’s housing crisis: the misalignment between how various levels of government track housing.
Jelena Payne, Windsor’s commissioner of economic development, says the city’s preliminary calculations suggest that it could be eligible for up to $10-million in funding over three years plus a bonus, based on its current rate of home building,
The City of Windsor said in a news release last week that in 2023 it approved building permits for 1,154 residential housing units and so exceeded its target by 21 per cent. However, those numbers do not measure housing starts, which is the metric the province uses to track targets.
The provincial tracker relies on monthly data provided by the federal Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., with a housing start being defined as the beginning of construction, including pouring a foundation.
John Revell, Windsor’s chief building officer, says the city does not typically track housing starts, but that building permits essentially equate to starts.
He did not know how many of the permitted buildings in Windsor had started construction, but said that owing to the cost of the permit and the land, developers typically don’t delay unless constrained by winter weather.
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Mr. Revell said he would be meeting with the CMHC later this week to discuss the numbers.
Ms. Payne said there can be a delay between when municipalities submit their permit numbers and when a CMHC assessor sends an employee to inspect the sites to confirm the start.
In a statement, Ontario Housing Ministry spokesperson Justine Teplycky said, “Performance is evaluated by comparing the municipality’s number of housing starts and residential units created in a given calendar year against the annual target. If the municipality does not reach at least 80 per cent of its housing target in a calendar year, it is not eligible for a funding allocation through the Building Faster Fund.”
However, municipalities can apply for any amount remaining from the $400-million in annual funding, she said.
It’s likely that some of that amount will be left over. Only seven municipalities were within 20 per cent of their goal and 12 exceeded it, making them eligible for funding on the first pass.
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Windsor issued its news release last Thursday after federal Housing Minister Sean Fraser referenced the 36 per cent housing starts figure in a letter to Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens, obtained by The Globe and Mail.
The letter was sent to inform the mayor about a separate housing disagreement, stating that the city would not be eligible for the federal Housing Accelerator Fund because it voted against allowing zoning for fourplexes throughout the city – a condition for the cash. Ottawa had previously suggested Windsor could have received up to $70-million.
Mike Moffatt, assistant professor at the Ivey Business School at Western University and founding director of the PLACE Centre, a housing think tank, said government and municipalities should find a better metric than housing starts to measure efforts to meet housing targets.
“CMHC measures housing starts as a barometer of economic activity. It was never sort of meant to be used to gauge housing performance. But it’s really the only one they have at the moment, because municipalities don’t release permit data in any kind of regular fashion,” Mr. Moffatt said.