...The Windsor Star, Monday, November 19th, 2012 - When Tarik Balbaki's family was deciding where to build a new home, they considered the county suburbs, but the convenience of Windsor just couldn't be beat.
"It was a no-brainer for me," said Balbaki, who lives in the South Cameron neghbourhood just northeast of Huron Church Road and EC Row Expressway. "I like the city life, I like Windsor. I feel like Windsor's growing."
Balbaki, a 38 year old business owner with the Walker Road kitchen cabinet, furniture and mattress store Warehouse Guys, is one of the people drawn to Windsor's fastest growing neighbourhoods for the attractions of both urban and suburban living.
New subdivisions in South Windsor and East Riverside offer brand new homes with big yards and ample parking that are just a short drive away from schools, work, shopping and entertainment in Detroit and downtown Windsor.
The trend isn't what you might expct, considering the City of Windsor's population shrank over the last five years while the suburban bedroom communities of LaSalle, Kingsville and Lakeshore saw small gains. But a detailed analysis of census data shows four out of the five fastest growing neighbourhoods in the region were inside Windsoro city limits.
Windsor's expansion eastward has been in the works for decades, with the framework for new development under the East Riverside Planning Area included in the City's official plan. The new houses attracted new residents, with the Forest Glade and Little River Corridor areas each growing by about 10 percent between 2006 and 2011.
But the biggest gains were in South Windsor, with the Walker Gates neighbourhood near Walker Road and Highway 401 addiing about 240 new dwellings and almost 20 percent more people. Balbaki's neighbhourhood was the second-fastest growing, with 325 new dwellings drawing about 15 percent more people.
The numbers show that even in the depths of the recession, people were still buying hosues in Windsor -- but turning up their noses at resale homes in the city centre. John Rauti, a Sales Representative with Valente Real Estate whose family business, J. Rauti Custom Homes Limited, built many of the houses that got snapped up in those fast-growing neighbourhoods, said a lot of factors lined up to make it popular to buy brand new homes in Windsor's outskirts during that five-year period.
"They can go just outside the core and they get a bigger property, a better neighbourhood," he said. "They're researching schools and they just want the amenities that they have around these brand new areas."
Overcrowding is already a problem in some schools in the City's faster growing neighbhourhoods. Talbot Trail, an elementary school in the fast growing neighbourhood in Windsor, recently re-adjusted its boundaries so it could accommodate full-day klindergarten and still has several portables on site.
Greater Essex County District Schools Board superintendent of education Terry Lyons said the board can only take current enrolment, not future projections, into account when it's building or making additions to schools. That's how brand new schools sometimes end up with parking lots full of portables almost immediately.
"We're not allowed to build on prospect. We have to build on existing. And that's where we don't look very intelligent at times," he said.
But the challenges that come when a neighbourhood grows faster than services and infrastructure haven't stopped Windsorites from flocking to new subdivisions. With rock bottom property values, many people conclude they can get more bang for their buck by building a new house from the ground up than by gutting a fixer upper in an established neighbourhood.
Rauti said during the five-year period included in the census data, the fee the City of Windsor charges developers to hook up new neighbhourhoods in infrastructure like water and sewers was significantly lower. That fact, combined with cheaper housing prices, added an incentive for people looking to build a new home to buy within city limits.
Rauti said that's changing, however. The City gives developers who want to tear down an old house and build a new one in Windsor's declining core neighbourhoods a discount, but in 2010, it raised the fee to hook new houses up the municipal services in new subdivisions by about $4,000.
The rising cost of building a new home in Windsor, combined with the City's higher tax rates compared to the county, have slowed new home construction significantly in recent years, Rauti said. He predicted the next census would show an even more pronounced population push right out of Windsor and into the suburbs, with LaSalle experiencing the most growth.
"Development charges were cheaper in Windsor back then. Now, they're out of reach," he said.
People aren't really even building in Windsor as much anymore and I see it really slowing down in Windsor."
想了解更多的温莎实际情况，
请联系 诚信 敬业 高效 买房 卖房 租房
您最值得信任的地产经纪 薛山 Shan Xue
加拿大安大略省温莎房地产经纪
手机：519-9823-908
QQ号：2436827652
中国免费直拨电话
950-4033-7188
Email：shanxue12@hotmail.com
网站：http://www.shanrealtor.com/
https://www.facebook.com/shanrealtor 
