August 24, 2020
Council Meeting – Item 7.3
Additional Information

Dear councillors,

I read with interest administrations report re “housing development regulation in near campus neighbourhoods.”

There is a change taking place in our family friendly neighbourhoods. We are losing them. Out of town investment is turning our single family homes into rental properties. We are losing stability in our neighbourhoods due to an increase in transient population. Stable neighbourhoods make residents feel safe and secure.

I live in a historical neighbourhood. It’s of great significance to this city. Over the last decade I’ve watched it change from a middle class neighbourhood to a blighted one. My street is two blocks long and home to both seniors and families. We watch as the houses sell one by one to private investment. An investor would sooner rent out to a many tenants instead of a family as the income would be more. 3 bedroom homes are turned into 10 bedroom homes. How is this legal? Two single family detached houses across from me have turned into rooming houses. I no longer know who lives there as the tenants are many and they change from month to month. They blast music out the front door and don’t care about the noise. They have bonfires all night, they light fireworks on the street at 2 AM. They fight. And there is never any place to park. I call bylaw. And they respond. But the tenants like the out of town property owners are transient. These houses flip once a year. The stability of these homes and our neighbourhood is no longer there. This once family friendly neighbourhood has been allowed to be taken over by private slumlord investment. WHY? Would you like this in your neighbourhood? It’s causing a lot of anxiety and anguish to us all. Don’t rooming houses belong in business corridors, where their activity can happen without a hindrance to others. How is it family homes are turned into flop houses? I worry for the seniors and families on my block. It is scary.

The area of Riverwest is made up of older character homes which were once inhabited by the more prominent citizens of the city. One street is even referred to as Judges Row. I recently had an opportunity to do a flyer drop in this area allowing me a close up look at these beautiful properties. I was astonished to find most of these homes have not been preserved. Foundations were falling apart, ease troughs hanging because they haven’t been cleaned out, foliage invading the exterior walls, unkept yards, fences falling down and rusted. These properties are not being structurally maintained. They are owned by out of town private investors and rented out as rooming houses. What will happen to this once pristine neighbourhood if this is allowed to continue.

Our city’s oldest neighbourhoods are located closest to Detroit river, our history, our culture, and our oldest establishments. Yet we sit idly by and allow our city to be exploited by foreign investment taking advantage of our cheap housing stock and lack of municipal oversight. Windsor needs a residential rental licensing program. An RRL will make it unappealing to foreign investment to buy property here. Investors would not buy in Windsor knowing they