Flooding prevention, tree coverage top priorities
Improving the city’s tree coverage and spending millions to prevent future basement flooding were top priorities Tuesday, as city councillors proposed dozens of new projects to fold into its 20-year strategic plan.
“I think what you did tonight is you sent a signal to the community that that’s important to you,” Mayor Drew Dilkens said, pointing to the scribbled list of suggestions raised by individual councillors.
These included creating a fund to buy up more riverfront properties, beefing up property standards regulations, widening Banwell Road, adding more community events and adding sidewalks and streetlights to city neighbourhoods.
When the list was completed, Dilkens provided each of the councillors with 12 round stickers, which they then affixed to whatever projects — ones not included in the existing 20-year plan developed by the previous council four years ago — they want most. “The idea here is to identify the projects that are most important to you,” he told councillors, who rose from their seats to affix stickers — sometimes multiple stickers, on their favourites.
“OK, here’s what it looks like,” the mayor said.
Tied with nine stickers each were implementing the sewer master plan, ordered following disastrous floods in 2016 and 2017, and increasing the city’s tree coverage and eliminating the long wait time for tree trimming. Projects with eight stickers included: improving the city’s branding, such as the Welcome to Windsor signage as motorists enter the city; economic diversification; and implementing the soon-to-becompleted Active Transportation Plant which will lay out network of bike lanes and paths to increase cycling and walking. Seven-sticker projects included: an aggressive traffic calming policy; adding more community events; and strengthening the property standards bylaw. Sixsticker projects included: intensify the population of people living in the city ’s core areas by 25 per cent; and helping more neighbourhoods get streetlights and sidewalks. Projects receiving scant or no support included: a new skateboard park (no votes); a long-envisioned pedestrian ferry service to Detroit (one vote); initiatives for families and youth (one vote): improving community policing; publishing the recorded voting records of councillors (one vote); eliminating the alarmingly high number of people waiting for public housing (one vote); and reducing poverty by 20 per cent. The projects with two or fewer stickers were eliminated from the strategic plan. “They’re all valuable points, but I’d say the ones that have eights and nines are ones that will be coming back at budget time,” said Dilkens.
Council has already approved $90 million in sewer improvements in the first phase of the sewage master plan. The final phase is expected later this year. “I can guarantee it will be a $300-million to $400-million plan, in addition to the $90 million we’ve already approved for the first phase,” he said.
“And it’ll be a priority for city council to get done over the other things it wants to get done.” The final strategic plan will come before council for approval in about a month, following Tuesday’s session.
“We’re not just looking at one (four-year) term of council, we’re looking at five terms of council, to see where we want to be,” the mayor said.
Of the 55 projects listed by the last council four years ago, 10 are completed or nearly completed, 30 have been started and 15 have either not been started or are not close to completion. Completed projects include: maintaining “competitive” tax rates, building a new family change room in the Gino and Liz Marcus Recreation Centre; creating a $3-million public art endowment fund; introducing a new parking app; starting bulk garbage collection; redeveloping Sandwich (the new roundabout, Brock/Tecumseh statue and Sandwich Street arch); and a couple of road and sewer projects. Projects on the go include: districting various core commercial areas; expanding the Budimir library; an alley closing subsidy program, extending Lauzon Parkway (in the planning stages), and several proposals like a new Fontainebleau community centre and indoor soccer facilities that are being examined as part of the Recreation Master Plan process. The strategic plan has three main goals: to add jobs, bolster the city’s reputation and improve residents’ quality of life. Other projects that made council’s list on Tuesday include: improving alleys (five stickers), fostering a 20 per cent shift in transportation methods, from driving to cycling or walking (three); making sure new subdivisions aren’t built without the proper infrastructure like widened roads (five); hiring a neighbourhood co-ordinator at city hall to help neighbourhood initiatives (four); and make improvements to Sandpoint Beach (three).