Windsor’s mayor pauses development charge directive until more learned about impact of new federal-provincial program

A house under construction is seen in Windsor, Ont. in this undated image. (CTV News Windsor)

Windsor’s mayor is pausing an effort to get more developers to begin constructing purpose-built housing until the city can learn more about the impact of a recently announced federal-provincial program.

On March 3, Drew Dilkens issued a directive to city administration under Ontario’s Strong Mayor Powers to report to council in April with options on a partial or full exemption from development charges for multi-unit, purpose-built development projects that receive building permits in 2026.

It would focus on developments located anywhere in the city except the Sandwich South planning district.

He’s pausing after the federal and Ontario governments announced on March 30 an $8.8 billion plan to lower municipal development charges, a move expected to cut those charges in half for the next three years. The money will be used to build housing-enabling infrastructure and reduce municipal development charges.

Dilkens says they have no details of what that would look like.

“It would be very prudent for us to make sure we get all of the details aligned with whatever we’re considering with the federal-provincial program, so we don’t leave a penny on the table,” he says.

Dilkens says the premise of his directive was to clear the pipeline of projects in waiting and meet goals under Ontario’s Building Fast Fund, which gave municipalities money for meeting certain housing goals.

“It’s clear now that the BFF program is not going to be continued, and they’re putting their money into this $8.8 billion fund, which will make cities whole up to 50 per cent of the waiver of development charges,” he says.

Dilkens says the expectation is that the details of the program will be launched in June.

“That would give administration enough time for the first meeting of July to come back and spell it out for city council. We can act very quickly on our end as long as we know what the rules of engagement are with the federal and provincial governments,” he says.

The City of Windsor received $5.2 million from the province in 2025 under the Building Faster Fund after hitting the housing goals in 2024 after the city broke ground on just over 2,306 new homes, achieving 213 per cent of its housing targets in 2024.

This funding is aimed at helping the city build more homes and community infrastructure to continue towards its commitment of building 13,000 new homes by 2031.

The provincial Building Faster Fund was announced in August 2023 and is a three-year, $1.2-billion program designed to encourage municipalities to speed up the housing construction process and get more homes built faster.

Ontario committed to building 1.5 million new homes across the province by 2031.