The sewer we were told flows to the Little River plant, which directs the water past all the residential homes on Lauzon Road. The apartment complex would be the farthest away, so it would be the last to backup, but all the homes on Lauzon Road, including mine which was built in 1989 will be first in line for water backup into their homes. The homes would get the blunt of the damage while the apartment complex would be the contributing factor to possibly overloading the sewer system.

Since we have filed a claim in 2016, we are not able to secure insurance coverage to cover the contents of our basement now, we are only able to purchase a small amount of insurance due to the claim, which puts us at a higher risk of financial loss should water damage occur at our house resulting from overloading the sewer system. If and when it happens, I am sure we will face an increase in insurance premium, or not be offered any sewar/water damage coverage at all. Who will pay for the damage?

Single Family Dwellings & Property Values

We purchased our home in 1999, it offered a nice size lot, a little extra property, and our property is consistent with other single-family homes on Lauzon Road and we pay over $7,000 in yearly taxes.

The buyer of 3129 Lauzon purchased this residential property, and at the time it had a single house on the property with a small garage, it was the home of the “Lawnmower repair man”, he fixed everyone’s broken / non starting lawnmower, when he passed, the property was purchased for $375,000.

The house was torn down, and trees were removed without ERCA consent we heard. This probably was the old trick to avoid future ERCA concerns if the property was to be rezoned, the old “ask for forgiveness, not permission, I didn’t know” scenario. Once a saw gets into a tree to chop it down, there is no going back, pay the penalties, get the slap on the hand, and then propose new zoning.

I don’t know why someone felt the need to cut trees down on their vacant lot? Us neighbors had to complain to the city to have the grass cut as it approached 3 feet high. Finally, big commercial, farm style tractors were brought in a couple times to knock the grass and brush down because of the complaints of the overgrown property, but the owner felt the need to cut trees down?

Don’t add up to me, but I guess it’s back to the “ask for forgiveness, not permission” strategy used in the rezoning of land.

It is appalling and disheartening that this zoning is even considered, knowing that one person or developer can buy a residential lot for $375,000 and build a $10 million dollar apartment complex on it while neighbors next door takes a loss of their property valu e on a residential street, don’t make sense.

This results in a return of 25 x times their money, all at the expense of devaluing the surrounding neighbor’s property values, altering a neighborhood, instituting new problematic issues onto current neighbor s while the developer creates a windfall for themselves at neighbors’ expense.

This doesn’t make good financial sense to the Lauzon Road residents or to any homeowner anywhere in the City of Windsor if it happened to them, we all welcome new neighbors with homes consistent to the neighborhood, but not apartment buildings.

Bottom line if it’s a commercial venture it should be built on commercial land with commercial roads, commercial sewers, etc. and there is commercial land avai lable, but the developer wouldn’t experience the financial gain utilizing a more expensive commercial property vs rezoning a residential property.