City council started the expropriation process, targeting rotting houses scattered across a once-thriving neighbourhood.
Sandwich Town residents celebrated the city’s plan to expropriate 45 derelict properties in an effort to revive their neighbourhood that has been plagued with urban blight for decades.
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The city announced Thursday it would start the process to take over the homes — most of them owned by the Ambassador Bridge company — and sell the properties for private residential development. Bridge owners said they’re willing to hand the properties over in exchange for several nearby roads.
While the two sides continue to fight over the properties, residents expressed relief that something might actually get done.
“I think it was a collective sigh of relief from everybody that lived here that those buildings were (going to be) torn down,” said Joel Cummings, who lives on Brock Street.
The vacant properties on nearby Edison Street and Bloomfield Road were “a blight on the neighbourhood” and had caused issues with fires and rodents for years on his street, he said.
“It impacts the neighbourhood, it impacts peoples’ property values. So, I think the change is good,” Cummings said. “It’s been a long time.”
Windsor council unanimously authorized the expropriation process during a closed-door meeting July 27, targeting houses and vacant properties scattered across a once-thriving neighbourhood in the shadow of the international bridge.
The city says the derelict homes have reduced housing supply, contributed to significant urban blight, created public-safety and property-standards concerns, while hurting investment and deteriorating the neighbourhood.
After the expropriation announcement, the Canadian Transit Company, which owns the bridge and surrounding dilapidated houses, announced it is willing to tear down the structures at its own cost and give the land to the city. The company, though, has plans to expand its plaza at the foot of the bridge and wants in return ownership of several public roadways.
Brock Street resident Ken Donnelly applauded the expropriation and demolition plans, saying they are “100 percent better than what we’ve got here with the rats and raccoons and the eyesores.”
Donnelly, a resident of the neighbourhood for the past 16 years, says issues with homelessness and rats have led to the deterioration of the area.
“It’s nice to have them torn down and you don’t have to worry about that,” he said. “It’s making the neighbourhood look good.”
